India now has 23 startups in the Unicorn Club including ERUDITUS

Now India has a fourth ed-tech startup joining the unicorns club. Eruditus is a Mumbai-based ed-tech that was founded in 2010 by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera. 

It is a collaboration with universities globally that provides eight to ten-month-long executive-level courses to students from around 80 countries who are interested in killing themselves. The courses cost somewhere between $5000 to $40,000 and are available for on-campus, off-campus and even online modes. Some of the very famous universities it is partnered with are Columbia, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, Tuck at Dartmouth, Wharton, UC Berkeley and London Business School.

It s recently in news for raising $650 million in a new funding round led by venture capital firm Accel US and Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund II, according to a top executive. The online executive education startup will be valued at $3.2 billion posts the investment, which is a mix of primary capital infusion and secondary stake sale by existing shareholders, founder, and CEO Ashwin Damera told to Economic Times.

This round of investment had made it the third-highest valued ed-tech in India. Before this, the company had raised $113 million in a Series D round led by Leeds Illuminate and Proses Ventures. Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), headed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan a non-profit organisation also participated in the round that valued Eruditus at $700 million.

This can also be seen as Japanese Conglomerate Softbank's second bet in the Indian Ed-tech sector which had earlier invested in Bangalore-based Unacademy which is the second-highest edtech in India edtech sector after Byju's which is valued at $16.5 Eruditus’ early investors Bertelsmann India Investments has taken a partial exit, said two people on condition of anonymity. 

Angel investors have also exited the firm and the founders diluted a part of their stake, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity. Eruditus' series E is yet to be closed and will see participation from existing and new investors in the upcoming three weeks as per reports by a source close to the company. With this funding to Eruditus, the total count of Indian startups hitting a billion-dollar valuation stands at 23 this year. Earlier this week Eruditus Rival Upgrad entered India’s unicorn stable after completing its $185 million fundraise led by Temasek Holdings Ltd at a valuation of $1.2 billion. The other two

Edtech to join the Unicron club is Naspers and Tiger Global funded Byju's and SoftBank-backed Unacademy, valued at $16.5 billion and $3.44 billion, respectively. With such speed growth, Indian techs are fast-growing in the current world market.