upGrad Merges Harappa Education to Establish Leadership in Enterprise Learning in India

(BUSINESS WIRE) -- upGrad, Asia’s largest integrated higher Edtech major has announced a 100% merger of Harappa Education at a value of USD 38 million (INR 300 crores). Harappa will clock USD ~10 million (INR 75 crores) in Revenue this year. upGrad closed this transaction with present Harappa shareholders - Bodhi Tree Systems, (a newly formed platform between James Murdoch & Uday Shankar) and Co-founders Pramath Raj Sinha & Shreyasi Singh. All of them join the upGrad Cap table.

Co-founded by Pramath Raj Sinha, also the Founding Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) and the Founder Trustee of Ashoka University, and Shreyasi Singh, ex-editor of India Inc, the New Delhi-based online learning institution offers self-paced courses to address the spiralling problem of poor employability, inadequate leadership and an ill-equipped workforce. Harappa has an active clientele of 100 mid-large sized organizations.

“Similar to the integrated approach that we have been able to achieve in the B2C segment, we intend to offer a complete suite of products to our enterprise partners. A combination of upskilling courses along with these critical skills that Harappa has to offer would set us apart. We see strong demand from our clients and with Harappa coming in, we believe we'll be able to grow exponentially within the segment as we cross-leverage the synergies. Pramath and Shreyasi come with a strong business legacy, which in turn, further fuels our ambition of becoming the global edtech leader,” said Ronnie Screwvala & Mayank Kumar, Co-founders of upGrad.

Commenting on the development, Pramath Raj Sinha and Shreyasi Singh, Founders of Harappa Education, said, “Consolidations get like-minded entrepreneurs together to build powerful, inspired formations. We are delighted to expand on the immense potential of our unique curriculum of social, cognitive and behavioral skills, with Ronnie and Mayank, who have created such an exciting global company. As a combined force, Harappa and upGrad will anchor our purpose and conviction to create a truly wholesome learning ecosystem for lifelong learners in India and abroad, with our time-tested pedagogy, flagship programs and rich partnerships to guarantee unmatched outcomes for our learners and clients.”

EY acted as the advisor for Harappa on the transaction.

About upGrad

upGrad - started in 2015 is a pioneer in the online education revolution, focused on powering career success for a global workforce of over 1.3 billion. It is one of the few Integrated LifeLongLearning Tech Companies in the world - spanning the college learner to the working professional from the age group of 18-50 years and across Undergrad courses, Campus & Job Linked Programs, Studying Abroad, short form to executive programs to Degrees, Masters and Doctoral - with a learner base of over 3 million across 100+ countries and over 300 University partners and a robust enterprise business with a client base of 1000 companies worldwide.

upGrad’s Global Learning Engine rests on four pillars - (a) its large repository of original & owned content and IP, (b) its own best-in-class proprietary tech platform, (c) it's high touch human-led delivery service backed by coaches & mentors, and (d) an 85% course completion track record, backed by a further 80% career outcomes guaranteed performance.

Already termed Asia’s higher EdTech leader it has offices in the UK, U.S., Middle East, India, Singapore & Vietnam, and with a presence in many more countries.

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