The global e-learning market is expected to grow at 21% CAGR to reach $1 trillion by 2027. India’s Unicorn entrant, Eruditus, is aspiring to become one of the leading players in the market.

Eruditus’s Offerings

Founded in 2010 by Ashwin Damera and Chaitanya Kalipatnapu, Mumbai-based Eruditus Executive Education works with the top universities to make executive education globally accessible. Eruditus had initially started out to offer offline classes with faculty from Europe’s INSEAD and the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. It used to conduct a 10 day-classroom program in a 5-star hotel for 10-15 people. By 2016, the company had realized the potential of online education offerings and began its foray into the digital world.

Photo Credit: Tumisu from Pixabay

Today, Eruditus offers six to eight-month long-executive educational courses to students. It continues to expand its partnership with leading universities and has tied up with players like INSEAD, London Business School, Columbia, Wharton, Harvard Business School, Tuck at Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and UC Berkeley to offer learning programs. Its courses are focused on leadership, finance, management, and banking subjects. It has over 52 university partners, offers 300 courses, and plans to grow to 75 university partners with 550-600 courses respectively in the coming year.

Eruditus works with over 1,550 members across 14 countries and is focused on expanding its reach of high-quality education to various demographics in the next 10 years. The company had started its operation with a focus on India, but since then it has expanded to international markets. It offers courses in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Arabic for its international students. Today, the US has become the largest market for Eruditus and accounts for around a third of its enrollments. Besides partnerships with universities, it is also working on expanding its partnerships with loan providers to help simplify access to education loans for its courses.

Recently, it announced the acquisition of Silicon Valley-based iD Tech for an estimated $200 million. Founded in 2000 by Pete Ingram-Cauchi, iD Tech provides short-term courses in coding, game development, robotics, and design for kids aged 13 -19 years. Like Eruditus, iD Tech had also started with an offline model, providing offline summer camps. The global pandemic forced it to pivot to an online model while remaining focused on the K-12 market. The acquisition will allow Eruditus to expand beyond higher education offerings into the K-12 STEM space, especially in the science and mathematics stream.

Eruditus’s Financials

Eruditus earns revenues through its course fee that ranges from $5,000 to $40,000 per course. These courses are available in online, off-campus, and on-campus modes. The company expects to grow 2.5 times within the next 12 months, targeting to cross revenues of over $500 million in FY22. In FY21, it reported revenues of $185 million compared with $100 million in FY20. It had turned profitable last year and was already at a $350 million revenue run rate as of August 2021.

The company has raised $813.5 million in seven rounds of funding led by GSV Ventures, Accel, SoftBank Vision Fund, Prosus Ventures, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, CPP Investments, Ved Capital, Leeds Illuminate, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and Sequoia Capital India. Its most recent round was held in August 2021 when it raised $430 million and was valued at $3.2 billion.

Eruditus rates Coursera as its close competitor. Coursera expects to end the current year with revenues of over $400 million and is currently trading at a market capitalization of $2.9 billion. Unlike Eruditus, Coursera was still operating at an adjusted net loss. If Eruditus manages to meet its FY22 target, then its valuation does seem reasonable.