Edtech firm Eruditus looks to enter the unicorn club in the next 12 months

Having work experience of over 20 years and being in senior management, Nilesh Virkar, country head at CMA CGM Logistics India, was looking for a course that would enhance his skills, bring in innovation and teach modern ways of conducting business. “The MIT Sloan Executive Program in General Management (EPGM) from Eruditus is exactly what I was looking for,” Virkar said. He was among many who pursued the course from  Eruditus Executive Education, which is a part of Mumbai-based edtech start-up Eruditus group.
 
The group comprises Eruditus Executive Education and its online division Emeritus. Founded in 2010 by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera, the group partners with top-tier American and European universities to provide executive education and short private online courses (SPOC) to working professionals.
 
The group has recently raised $40 million in Series C funding round led by Sequoia India. Existing investor Bertelsmann India Investments also participated in this round.
 

 

“Upskilling and reskill-ing represent one of the fastest-growing segments of the global education market. Driven both by individual learners investing in their own professional development and by corporations investing in the development of their employees, the massive challenge of reskilling in response to technology evolution is throwing open a multi-billion-dollar opportunity for education entrepreneurs,” said G V Ravishankar, MD, Sequoia Capital India Advisors.
 

The fresh funds will be used to expand operations to China and increase footprint in Latin America, besides introducing more courses in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
 
Product concept
 
The company provides professional development courses to employees in mid and higher management levels. It has collaborated with noted foreign universities and business schools, including Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wharton School, INSEAD and Harvard Business School.
 
“Eruditus has a core team that has been the beneficiary of high-end education and understood its impact on their careers. We, therefore, aimed to provide access to the same benefits to a wider community of professionals, through tie-ups up with top B-schools. We provide access to a variety of courses such as data science, general management and digital marketing,” said Damera.
 
The content and certificates come from the universities, he said. The duration of executive programmes is six months to nine months. They cost around Rs 18  lakh to Rs 20 lakh.  SPOCS are of around two months and they cost Rs 75,000 to Rs 1 lakh. “We focus on outreach, marketing and programme experience. In the case of online courses, we manage the technology and product stack,” said the co-founder. “Our USP is... making Ivy League education more accessible and affordable for working professionals.”
 
Opportunities
 

The company is chasing opportunities in the global professional education market, which is pegged at about $280 billion.  Other players include Coursera, edx, Udacity and 2U (in the US) and Upgrad, Simplilearn and Great Learning (in India).  “We will be the first Indian company to cross $100 million in revenue. Unlike the other players, we will remain focused on three pillars — school collaborations, global student enrollment and very high learning outcomes,” said Damera.
 
The group targets enrolling 30,000 students from more than 80 countries this financial year. The edtech company aims to grow 10 times by having 300,000 students and earning a revenue of $650 million by 2023-24. From currently about 50 courses, it plans to increase this number to around 300 in five years by providing courses in cybersecurity, information security, forensic audits and smart manufacturing.
 
Having offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Singapore, Boston, Dubai and Mexico City, Eruditus plans to enter Brazil and China later this year. Nearly 70 per cent of students enrolled are based outside of the US.
 
Eruditus is hopeful of getting into the Unicorn club in the next 12 months.
 
On the revenue model, the co-founder said: “Students pay us a tuition fee. We pay a share of this to the university that creates the course. We bear the cost of marketing, technology and programme delivery.”  Eruditus achieved break-even in the last quarter of 2018.
 

Zishaan Hayath, founder and CEO, Toppr

EXPERT TAKE: Online learning, a lucrative segment to pursue
 
Top US B-schools have created a great brand for themselves. However, until recently, the overall impact they made was limited to the number of students they admitted to their campuses.
 
Now, Eruditus has overcome these barriers and will help create an explosion of opportunities for a larger group of professionals. It's an interesting problem to solve and a lucrative segment to pursue. Eruditus has ensured that their courses are more affordable than their full-time counterparts. This kind of accessibility will provide a platform for young leaders without burdening them with education loans. It will be interesting to watch how they increase the perceived market value of their courses as against other players in the market.
 
Online learning is going to see massive growth in the coming years as it solves problems that classroom learning can't. Students don't have to spend two years away from their families and struggle to pay off loans. India is at the threshold of changing the very perception of education as we know it.