In a cash-and-share swap arrangement, upGrad bought Harappa Education in New Delhi for $38 million (about Rs 296 crore). This is upGrad’s seventh purchase.
Harappa shareholders, Bodhi Tree Systems (a newly formed platform between James Murdoch and Uday Shankar), and co-founders Pramath Raj Sinha and Shreyasi Singh completed the transaction with Mumbai-based upGrad, which anticipates total sales of $500 million this fiscal year. They’ve all been included in the upGrad cap table.
“Given our small presence in the enterprise business-to-business (B2B) ecosystem, Harappa’s entrance enables us to establish a leadership position in the whole B2B corporate learning industry.”
In an interview, Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upGrad, claimed, “Harappa has built a unique educational product that may have a big effect on the learning outcomes of many learners.”
According to him, Harappa has a significant presence in the B2B and enterprise learning markets, as well as in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) sector, where the majority of its sales come from. Harappa was founded in 2018 by Sinha, the founding dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB) and an Ashoka University trustee, and Shreyasi Singh, a former India Inc. editor.
The organization targets young professionals of all specializations to offer self-paced courses in an effort to solve challenges of low employability, ineffective leadership, and an under-equipped workforce. It serves 100 mid and large-sized businesses. It also collaborates with institutions to strengthen students’ communication skills and prepare them for the job.
