Online higher education firm upGrad has acquired Impartus, a video-based learning platform, for ₹150 crore, in a cash and stocks deal as the company looks to distribute its courses to colleges and other educational institutions.
According to a press statement, about ₹50 crore of the proceeds from the deal will be used as a further investment to scale the Impartus platform this fiscal year. And, post the acquisition, Impartus will be rebranded as upGrad Campus, which will focus on providing learning tools to higher education institutions and colleges. Impartus co-founder Amit Mahensaria will take over as chief executive of upGrad Campus, and the subsidiary will continue to operate independently, the statement added.
Bengaluru-based Impartus currently provides a video-learning platform, helping colleges and other educational institutions shift to virtual classes. The platform also allows students to record class lectures and review supplementary course material at any time.
Through the acquisition, upGrad, which predominantly focuses on working professionals, now plans to tap a younger user base and distribute its upskilling courses on Impartus’s video-learning platform.
Commenting on the development, Ronnie Screwvala, Chairman and Co-founder of upGrad, said,
“We want to cater to every individual’s learning above the kindergarten to grade 12 segment. Impartus is a technology enabler for colleges and we will be augmenting and integrating the platform with upGrad’s short courses (1- 4 months) for the same base. Further, cementing a learning relationship with college students early means that they may continue using upGrad, in the future, to take test prep for government jobs or for upskilling courses in their professional career.”
The acquisition will provide upGrad access to 600,000 students and 280 higher educational institutions in the country. The company plans to add at least 50,000 new students for its courses this fiscal year through the acquisition. At present, upGrad offers more than 100 courses in collaboration with top-notch Indian and global universities. The platform claimed to have over 1 million total registered users from across 50 countries globally.
Amit Mahensaria, Co-founder of Impartus and now CEO of upGrad Campus, said,
“One of the major challenges faced by graduates in India is their lack of industry-ready and employable skill sets due to the inadequate curriculum of higher education institutions. The synergy of Impartus and upGrad will pave the way for augmenting college education by helping learners upskill with new-age courses, thus elevating their candidature for better career prospects.”
upGrad Campus looks to clock Rs85 crore in revenues by end of fiscal 2022.
upGrad has made close to five acquisitions and acqui-hires before Impartus, including online training software platform, Pyoopil; online job skilling platform, Acadview; and product community platform, CohortPlus. In 2020, the company acquired The Gate Academy to foray into test prep space, and Mumbai-based recruitment & staffing solutions platform, Rekrut India.
In April, upGrad raised $120 million as a part of its first external funding from Singapore-based global investment company Temasek Holdings. Since its founding in 2015, the EdTech major has been 100% owned, funded, and run by its co-founders as a capital-efficient business.
Meanwhile, the acquisition by upGrad gives an exit to Impartus’s existing investor Kaizen, which had invested $4.1 million in the startup in 2015.
