S Chand & Co raises $27 mn from IFC, Everstone Group

Publishing house S Chand and Company today said it has received USD 27 million (about Rs 179 crore) financing from IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, and existing investor -- the Everstone Group.
Everstone continues to be a significant minority investor in the company, S Chand said in a statement.
IFC will provide equity capital to help the company expand into new sub-segments of education and establish itself as a leader in the non-infrastructure education sector, it added.
"The investment will be used to scale up operations in education publishing and the digital education space which will enable S Chand to reach more students, in addition to creating skilled jobs," S Chand and Company Joint Managing Director Himanshu Gupta told PTI.

Digital content has the potential to empower teachers and significantly increase attention and understanding of abstract concepts for students, he added.
"The success of the overall education delivery system depends on the education material made available to students. S Chand is one of the few companies with the scale to increase access to affordable quality education material, particularly in tier II and tier III cities," IFC Chief Investment Officer Chris McCahan said.

India is IFC's top country exposure with committed portfolio standing at over USD 5 billion as of June 30, 2015. In FY'15, IFC committed USD 1.4 billion in new investments.

The S Chand Group has grown to be one of the largest content and service providers in the Indian education sector, publishing around 35 million textbooks.
It also delivers over 4,000 hours of e-content to 20 million students annually.
The Company has been investing in the fast growing ed-tech space with a presence in tablet-based content delivery, online tutoring, and online test preparation for government and PSU entrance examinations.