Executive education service provider Eruditus Executive Education Pvt. Ltd is in advanced talks to raise $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Sequoia Capital India, two people aware of the development said. Eruditus raised $2.3 million in debt from Temasek-owned Innoven Capital in July, according to data from CrunchBase. The company had previously raised $8 million (about ₹53 crore) in a Series B funding from Bertelsmann India Investments. INSEAD professor Neil Bearden had also invested in the Mumbai-based edtech startup in 2016.
Founded in 2010 by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera, Eruditus offers professional development programmes for executives in India, Singapore and Dubai, among other countries. It partners with executive education arms of Ivy League colleges including INSEAD, MIT Sloan, Wharton, Harvard Business School and Cambridge.
The company offers online learning courses and short campus programmes. Its executive education courses include lessons in management, personal leadership, marketing, design thinking and innovation among others for middle level and senior level professionals.
Eruditus’s courses cost $5,000-40,000, according to the company’s website.
Reliance Industries Ltd, Asian Paints Ltd, HSBC, Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd, Microsoft Corp., DHL, Accenture Plc and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) are a few of Eruditus’s corporate clients.
An email sent to co-founder Kalipatnapu remained unanswered until press time.
In July, online tutoring startup Unacademy raised $21 million from Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Nexus Venture Partners and other existing investors at a valuation of more than $100 million. Mint reported in October that Byju’s is set to raise $200-300 million in primary and secondary capital from new investors such as private equity giant General Atlantic. Recently, Vedantu, an online tutoring platform, raised $11 million in a round led by Omidyar Network.
According to a Google and KPMG report, the online education market in India is estimated at $247 million (as of 2017) with 1.57 million users. The industry is expected to witness a 8X growth over the next five years and will touch $1.96 billion by 2021.
Sequoia India didn’t respond to email seeking comment.
Source: Mint