Ronnie Screwvala to infuse Rs 100 crore in UpGrad’s B2B segment

Media mogul Ronnie Screwvala plans to infuse Rs 100 crore in the B2B segment of his online education startup UpGrad in the coming months and another Rs 100 crore during the next year for its international business.
ET had reported earlier this year that Screwvala had committed an additional Rs 300 crore of capital for UpGrad, a startup seeded within his venture capital firm Unilazer Ventures.
“We have already used about a third of the allocated amount of Rs 300 crore towards B2C. This is the year we will also spend on B2B and in the next year we would spend on expansion to international markets,” said Screwvala, who believes that equity in this startup is valuable, which has refrained him from turning to external funding.
Screwvala is also confident that UpGrad will cater to close to 6,000 students and earn revenues up to Rs 100 crore during FY18. The company clocked Rs 77 lakh in revenue with a loss of Rs 10 crore during FY16, according to the research firm Tofler.
“The Rs 100-crore revenue trajectory is based on the courses we have started and the response we have received. It’s not one of those speculative e-commerce projections,” said the former CEO of UTV Group. Screwvala along with Mayank Kumar, Ravijot Chugh and Phalgun Kompalli founded UpGrad in 2015. It offers courses ranging from data analytics, entrepreneurship, digital marketing and product management. The founders plan to soon add programmes on artificial intelligence and big data, among others.
The company is also in talks to partner with Nasscom for the industry body’s skilling platform, which is expected to skill and reskill about 1.5-2 million IT sector employees in the next five years. The recent layoffs in the IT industry have led to an uptick of 300% in applications, said Kumar, managing director of UpGrad.
“Applications from the IT industry have shot up by three to four times.We have also noticed that a lot of traditional companies are nominating their employees into programmes being offered by UpRonnie Screwvala to infuse Rs 100 crore in UpGrad’s B2B segment
Media mogul Ronnie Screwvala plans to infuse Rs 100 crore in the B2B segment of his online education startup UpGrad in the coming months and another Rs 100 crore during the next year for its international business.
ET had reported earlier this year that Screwvala had committed an additional Rs 300 crore of capital for UpGrad, a startup seeded within his venture capital firm Unilazer Ventures.
“We have already used about a third of the allocated amount of Rs 300 crore towards B2C. This is the year we will also spend on B2B and in the next year we would spend on expansion to international markets,” said Screwvala, who believes that equity in this startup is valuable, which has refrained him from turning to external funding.
Screwvala is also confident that UpGrad will cater to close to 6,000 students and earn revenues up to Rs 100 crore during FY18. The company clocked Rs 77 lakh in revenue with a loss of Rs 10 crore during FY16, according to the research firm Tofler.
“The Rs 100-crore revenue trajectory is based on the courses we have started and the response we have received. It’s not one of those speculative e-commerce projections,” said the former CEO of UTV Group. Screwvala along with Mayank Kumar, Ravijot Chugh and Phalgun Kompalli founded UpGrad in 2015. It offers courses ranging from data analytics, entrepreneurship, digital marketing and product management. The founders plan to soon add programmes on artificial intelligence and big data, among others.
The company is also in talks to partner with Nasscom for the industry body’s skilling platform, which is expected to skill and reskill about 1.5-2 million IT sector employees in the next five years. The recent layoffs in the IT industry have led to an uptick of 300% in applications, said Kumar, managing director of UpGrad.
“Applications from the IT industry have shot up by three to four times.We have also noticed that a lot of traditional companies are nominating their employees into programmes being offered by UpGrad,” he added.Grad,” he added.