Edtech firm upGrad has acquired the International School of Engineering (INSOFE) in a share swap deal worth USD 33 million. This is upGrad’s seventh acquisition in the last couple of years.
Insofe’s management and investors will get under 1 percent equity in upGrad as part of the deal. upGrad is valued at USD 2 billion.
Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairman at upGrad, said Insofe delivers global excellence in data science, ML, and AI(AI). INSOFE’s data and analytics courses would align well with upGrad, he added. He said the acquisition will take upGrad to the next level of specialisation.
INSOFE is Asia’s first data science education institute with a deep focus on data science, AI, and ML. Dr Dakshinamurthy V Kolluru, Dr Sridhar Pappu and A S L Ganapathi Kumar started the institution in Hyderabad in mid-2011 and expanded to Bengaluru in early-2016.
Last month, upGrad completed the acquisition of higher education startup Talentedge. The deal was first announced last year in December. Talentedge is expected to continue operating under its brand name despite the acquisition. Earlier this year, upGrad also acquired Work Better for an undisclosed amount to strengthen its enterprise learning and development offerings.
The Mumbai-based edtech is also expected to close a funding round in a couple of months. The company is looking to raise around USD 200-250 million.
In its last funding round, upGrad raised around USD 185 million from investors such as Temasek and International Finance Corporation at a valuation of USD 1.2 billion, making it the third edtech to get the unicorn tag.
