Edtech pioneer Ronnie Screwvala to build world's largest tech school

Edtech pioneer Ronnie Screwvala is planning to build the world’s largest tech school with offline and online campuses around the globe.

The move comes at a time when many unicorns recently fired employees in an attempt to conserve cash and focus on profitability amid steep losses and a funding winter.

Screwvala-led unicorn upGrad is scaling up its offline higher education platform with the launch of its new brand ‘UGDX’, which is focused on emerging digital technologies.

With an investment of $30 million, UGDX will open 10 institutes next year located at the campuses of various universities globally.

This includes three institutes in the US of which the San Francisco unit goes live in January 2023.

It is setting up five institutes in India across Delhi and Chennai to add to its existing facilities in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. It will have one institute in Singapore and the Middle East, each also.

The 10 institutes would house about 3,000-3,500 students each. 

“We want to create the largest tech school with learners having the flexibility of geographies that go from India to the US, Singapore and the Middle East,” said Screwvala, co-founder and chairperson, upGrad.

UGDX is slated to reach operational break-even in five quarters from its launch. The plan is also to have faculty recruitment in various geographies, including hiring 1,000 PhDs.

It also plans to use technology to seamlessly integrate campuses, faculty, and corporates within one ecosystem.

UGDX will specialise in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cybersecurity, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Other such areas include digital management, leadership courses and cloud computing. It will offer certificate, Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral programmes in these areas to technology students and working professionals. UGDX will set up the tech school at a university and the degrees would be granted under that university.  

Dakshinamurthy Kolluru, founder and CEO of upGrad Insofe, said the fee for an online Master’s programme under UGDX from a US university is around $10,000.

If the student is doing half of the course physically at a US university, the fee would be about $25,000.

“This is typically 60 to 70 per cent of the money that students spend when they want to go to a US university,” said Kolluru.

At a time when the US is facing a $1.7-trillion student debt crisis, Screwvala said the firm is enabling universities to create their own faculty. They can be outsourced around the world and offer courses at a price, which is substantially competitive.

upGrad competes with players such as Simplilearn, Coursera, 2U, edX, Chegg, Skillsoft and Byju’s. It recently raised funding of $210 million from marquee investors and family offices.

These include Bodhi Tree (a JV of James Murdoch & Uday Shankar), the family office of Bharti Airtel, Narotam Sekhsaria family office (Ambuja Cements and ACC), and Artian Investments (family office of Lakshmi Mittal - ArcelorMittal).

According to sources, the funding has helped the firm double its valuation to $2.25 billion.

The funding is helping the firm fuel its M&As (mergers and acquisitions) strategy, where it is in negotiations to acquire various companies in markets such as the US and Southeast Asia.

This year upGrad acquired companies such as Centum, Exampur, Harappa Education, Insofe and Work Better. 

“Post-pandemic there is a large section of people who want to come to the classroom and study,” said Kolluru.

 “We realised what we teach has a global demand. We found tremendous excitement from universities, both in India and US, for setting up the tech school there,” said Kolluru.

Bucking the slowdown trend within the sector, upGrad said it has remained bullish with its programme completion rate of 80 per cent.

About 40 per cent of the company’s total revenue is realised from Repeats and Referrals year-on-year. upGrad is on track to record an annual gross revenue run rate of $400 million during FY23.

Of this, about 45 per cent of total revenue will be realised from its own-branded online courses and programmes.