TalentSprint raises Rs 10 cr more from NSDC

To launch new programme to train aspiring teachers for CBSE jobs

TalentSprint, a Hyderabad-based skill development and training company, has raised Rs 10 crore in a second round of funding from National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a public-private partnership firm under the Union ministry of finance, to launch a new programme to train teachers for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) jobs.

“The new fund will be utilised for a teachers (primary and secondary) training programme, which will be launched in April 2015, with a batch of 500 candidates. Our goal is to train 100,000 aspiring teachers over the next 10 years,” Santanu Paul, managing director and chief executive of TalentSprint, told Business Standard.

TalentSprint had raised a Rs 10-crore long-term debt from NSDC in 2011, and Rs 20 crore in a Series A funding from Nexus Venture Partners in April 2012.

The company, whose core competency lies in software development and software testing, is also looking at introducing a big data programming course in January 2015. The three-month course, with a price point of Rs 50,000, will have 50 students in the first batch.

“Programming for big data requires a different set of skills. Big data is now becoming a huge area, and the industry is showing signs that it will absorb people right at the entry-level,” Paul said.

Stating that the new Companies Act 2013, which mandates companies to spend two per cent of their net profits on corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, was creating new interest categories within CSR, including skills, he said TalentSprint was getting leads from corporates to help young people become employment-ready.

Infosys Foundation has already partnered TalentSprint to train close to 650 young people from Tier-II and Tier-III towns who have finished their graduation in engineering disciplines in 2014. The three-month pilot, which was started across TalentSprint’s Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai centres on December 22, offers foundations of programming, soft skills and communications, and advanced technologies.

TalentSprint is currently in talks with three more foundations, even as it is in discussion with Nasscom Foundation, which acts as a conduit between foundations and skill development companies, he said.

“We expect more and more corporates to tread on this path, which will create a new revenue stream for TalentSprint, Paul said,” adding that the company currently derived 80 per cent of its revenues from B2C and the remaining from corporate induction programmes.