India’s edtech major upGrad acquires video platform Impartus for $20.6m

upGrad, South Asia’s largest online higher education company, has acquired Impartus, a video-enabled learning solutions provider, for about $20.6 million.

Bengaluru-based Impartus, co-founded by IIT graduates Amit Mahensaria, Alok Choudhary, and Manish Kumar, specializes in video technology. Its flagship product is an automated lecture capture system.

Impartus, which is now a 100-per cent subsidiary of upGrad, has been rebranded as upGrad Campus and integrated into the latter’s ecosystem. It will target higher educational institutions and college students.

The acquisition will strengthen upGrad’s presence among higher education institutions and learners, a Rs560 billion market in India. The company predominantly focuses on working professionals.

“This acquisition opens up a larger target group, as upGrad Campus will enable both higher education institutions and its learners to get access to world-class learning materials,” said Gaurav Kumar, Corporate Development and M&A head at upGrad.

upGrad is South Asia’s largest online higher edtech company offering more than 100 courses in collaboration with top-notch global universities like Duke Corporate Education (US), Michigan State University (US), Liverpool John Moores University (UK), Deakin Business School (Australia), Swiss School of Business Management, (Geneva), IIT Madras (India), IIM Kozhikode (India), and others.

Founded in 2015, the international edtech startup has impacted over 1 million total registered learners in more than 50 countries across the world.

The company has ranked No.1 in the LinkedIn Top Startups India 2020 list. This is the third time in a row that upGrad has been featured in the LinkedIn Top Startup list after 2018 and 2019.

Last month, the company raised $120 million from Singapore state investor Temasek, marking the first external funding raised by upGrad. Since its founding six years ago in 2015, upGrad has been 100-per cent owned, funded, and run by its co-founders as a capital-efficient business.

The company earlier said it plans to use the fresh capital to further strengthen its team, scale its global market operations, bolster its technology and product capabilities, pursue M&A opportunities, expand graduate and post-graduate degree portfolio in India, and scale up operations to achieve its $2 billion revenue goal by 2026.