Ed tech platform Eruditus has raised a $150 million Series F fundraise led by TPG’s The Rise Fund, with participation from existing investors Softbank Vision Fund 2, Leeds Illuminate, Accel, CPP Investments, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.
The company will use the funding to invest in AI technology and expand the company’s rapidly growing business serving governments and enterprises. Further, the company also aims to deepen its investments in the India and APAC regions. In a statement, the company highlighted that they will eye future acquisitions expansion in strategic markets. Additionally, as part of The Rise Fund’s investment, TPG’s Simit Batra will join Eruditus’ board of directors.
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“With this investment, we're excited to continue to grow and innovate to meet market demand,” said Ashwin Damera, CEO, Eruditus and Emeritus. In FY24, the company reportedly clocked a revenue of Rs 3,800 crore. Speaking to the Economic Times, Damera said, “We just turned profitable in FY24 at an EBITDA level. A company of our size, I think we should keep some cash in hand—cash for M&A.”
The company is also planning to reverse flip its domicile from Singapore to India. Several other start-ups are planning to or are in the process of shifting their domicile back to India. The latest start-up that shifted its domicile from the USA to India is fintech start-up. Groww.
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Speaking about the shift of domicile back to India, Tracxn's co-founder, Neha Singh, told Outlook Business earlier, “Earlier, it was perceived to be easier to list outside India because investors understood the tech sector better and there was more liquidity. Second, it opened up the M&A market as many requirements were based outside India. However, this perception has changed. Now, many companies prefer to get listed in India rather than overseas.”
Meanwhile, Eruditus’s fundraising is happening at a time when the ed-tech sector is still being looked at with skepticism due to the downfall of Byju’s. Once a poster boy of the start-up ecosystem, edtech start-up Byju’s is being valued at zero now. The valuation of the company at one point in time was $22 billion. Now, the company is engulfed in lots of legal cases, including insolvency proceedings against it. Damera reportedly said that the time taken to close the fundraise was long because global investors still have many questions about the ed-tech sector as a whole in India. PhysicsWallah was another ed-tech start-up that raised $150 million in a fundraise at a valuation of $2.8 billion after a long gap.
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