Scaler Academy announced its first acquisition. According to the definition stated in Corporate Finance, Acquisition is is a way of transferring ownership of organizations, business entities to another company. The ownership transfer is done by the purchase and sale of the organizations.
This process leads to the transfer of 100% or nearly 100% of the assets of the company. The motivation of the acquisition is done to improve financial performance and reduce the risk of the companies involved. One of the famous acquisitions in the history of India is Walmart’s Acquisition of Flipkart.
The COVID 19 saw the rise of one of the most important, the futuristic sectors- The edtech sector. The sector has been booming, with the education sector shifting to technology. The startups have been coming up in this sector and investors have kept a keen eye on this sector and have been investing heavily in the startups of this sector. Since January 2021, the startups of the edtech sector have received funding of USD 1.9 billion across 80 deals.
Out of this huge funding, Byju’s and Unacademy have alone received USD 1.44 billion. Between January and August 2021, the edtech sector in the country has been in the top three funded sectors of India. Byju’s, one of the biggest names of the edtech sector of the country, has become the most valuable unicorn startup of India, with a whooping value of USD 16.5 billion.
According to the reports, during the first three months of the lockdown, the time spent on the educational applications had increased by 30 percent. According to an estimate made by KPMG, the number of startups currently operating in the edtech sector of the country is around 3500, and according to the HRD Ministry, the expenditure of the Indian edtech would be USD 10 trillion by 2030.
The news of acquisition by an edtech startup has come. The startup, Scaler Academy, as announced on August 30, 2021, has acquired Delhi-based online learning platform Coding Elements. The deal has been made in all-cash deals.
This acquisition deal has been made worth Rs 8 crore, which is almost equal to USD 1 million, and it is the first acquisition made by the edtech startup. The acquisition has been made with the aim of bringing interaction and cooperation (synergy) between the two companies and expanding and strengthening the professional upskill offerings.
According to the deal, Coding Elements has been merged with the Scaler Academy. The founder of Coding Elements, Mudit Goel will be joining Scaler Academy as the strategy and product lead.
Mudit will be responsible for building the data science and machine learning vertical, and will also be engaged in deepening and strengthening the relationship of Scaler Academy with the industry partners. Scaler Academy has also kept aside funds worth Rs 500 million, which will be used in exploring other areas and avenues of inorganic growth through acquisitions.
About Scaler Academy
Founded in 2019 by IIT Hyderabad alumni Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena, Scaler Academy is an online tech-versity for the top 1% of the software developers in the country. The startup which is run by edtech startup InterviewBit is an upskilling platform for tech professionals and college students and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
The startup is engaged in offering intensive six-month computer science courses through live classes, which are delivered by tech leaders and subject matter experts. The courses and programs are designed with an aim to enhance the skills of software professionals by offering a modern curriculum with exposure to the latest technologies. The features provided by the startup are as follows-
1) Job driven online tech versity
2) Mentorship by Industry stalwarts
3) Forward-looking and in-depth course curriculum
The startup teaches the students all the relevant skills needed in software jobs, mentor them to crack recruitment processes and also help in providing them the referrals to the best opportunities in the software industry across the globe. The students here spend an average of 3-5 hours daily on the platform, learning and practicing their skills.
The students are provided with access to more than 400 working professionals from top software companies like Facebook, Amazon, Google, Directi, Microsoft, and many others who act as instructors, mentors, teaching assistants, and career coaches. Some of the renowned leaders who act as a guide to the students are- CoFounder and CEO of Directi Group and Zeta, Bhavin Turakhia, ex-APAC Head of Google, Rajan Anandan, and CEO of Fab.com, Jason Goldberg.
The startup currently has more than 500 employees and 1000 mentors and teaching assistants on its platform. According to the claims made by the startup, more than 7500 learners have joined the educational programs of the Scaler Academy. The startup has raised around USD 21.5 million from big names in the investors list like- Sequoia, GFC, Tiger Global, and Rocket Internet.
About the founders of Scaler Academy
The founders of the startup- Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena, are alumni of the IIIT Hyderabad.
Anshuman Singh has previously worked at Facebook, where he was responsible for leading the team to build and scale the Messenger feature. He has also been part of the four-member leading team to set up the office of Facebook in London. He is a competitive programmer and a two-time ACM ICPC World Finalist.
Abhimanyu Saxena has led the team that was responsible for designing the entire front end of Fab.com, which is an NYC-based retail marketplace. He has a very positive and good track record of getting funds and thus is termed as a seasoned entrepreneur. He had co-founded his first startup when he was in college only.
About Coding Elements
Founded in 2017 by Mudit Goel, Coding Elements is a startup that is engaged in providing top notch computer programming education. The startup values the students and help them build the skills that will be with them throughout the career. It provides extensive hands on practice during classes which helps the students in gaining expertise in the subject, thus making sure that they have confidence and ability to solve problems. The vision of the startup is-
a) Discover coding talent across the countries
b) Provide industry level knowledge
c) Support the growth of students
d) Help students fight the right opportunity
The startup claims to be different from others in the business on the following lines-
a) The dream of Coding Elements is to make quality coding education easily accessible
b) It has highly experienced and expert faculty
c) It has carefully crafted curriculum for every course
d) It has multiple batches that students can select from
The features provided by the startup are as follows-
a) Learn at your own pace
b) Excellent quality video lessons
c) Continuous support from our teachers
d) Online code evaluation
e) Certificate to showcase the achievements
f) We provide a free trail of the course
The unique features of the LIVE courses of the startup are as follows-
a) Comprehensive curriculum designed by the experts
b) Latest technologies are covered
c) Experienced and knowledgeable faculty
d) Interactive LIVE doubt session
e) Career support available to the students
f) Good track record of previous students
g) Live learning from the comfort of the homes
The faculty of the startup is from top universities and companies like Google, Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Paytm, Linkedin, and Flipkart.
The Delhi-based startup offers computer science courses to students like data science, machine learning, and full stack web and mobile development. It claims to have more than 4000 students who have enrolled in various in person classroom courses offered by the startup before the pandemic hit, post which it went completely online.
It is also engaged in offering courses in partnership with the think tank of Government NITI Ayog to more than 2 million students across 6000 schools under Atal Innovation Mission.
About the founder of Coding Elements
Mudit Goel is the founder and the lead instructor of Coding Elements. He is a CS graduate from New York and has worked in San Francisco, California for 5 years. He has the experience at top software companies like Linkedln. He has also been a member of the Hiring Committee at top companies in Silicon Valley and has conducted more than 400 interviews. `
Any statements made ?
There have been several statements made on behalf of both Scaler Academy and Coding Elements. They are as follows-
Abhimanyu Saxena, who is the co-founder of Scaler Academy made a statement saying that this acquisition will help the startup in furtehr strengthening the upskilling platform by expanding teh courses beyond the core software engineering. He further said that as the startup enters a next growth phase, he is surfe that the resources and talent pool of Coding Elements will help Scaler Academy in expanding their offerings and reach.
The acquisition is the next step in expanding and increasing the growth and making Scaler Academy a world-class virtual tech university. He even added that the startup continues to examine, asses, and evaluate the potential Merger and Acquistion opportunities in the areas that matches the vision and mission of Scaler Academy.
Mudit Goel, the founder of Coding Elements also made a statement, which said that the startup was founded in 2017 with just 3 students in the first batch as an experiment to understand how high quality education can help in improving the lives of families.
He further said that in the span of 4 years, the startup has reached 2 million student across 6000 schools and has seen how education plays an important role in uplifting the entire economy. He concluded by saying that this strategic merger of Coding Elements and Scaler Academy is a satisfying moment.
Both the startups are working towards a common goal, and we just wish that this deal of merger and acquisition is successful for both the startups.
Edited by Sanjana Simlai.
