upGrad launches new upskilling programme; aims to enable 75,000 jobs

Bucking the slowdown trend within the edtech sector, upGrad said it has remained bullish with its program completion rate of 80 per cent

Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn upGrad is doubling down on creating the largest upskilling programme portfolio. The programme will allow first-time job seekers and working professionals to take their own upGrad branded courses. upGrad aims to enable 75,000 jobs through the new programme in one year.

“Our own branded certification courses for job enablement allow us the flexibility to focus on what makes the first-time employee or working professionals move up in their jobs or shift careers in order, to upgrade themselves,” said Mayank Kumar co-founder and MD of upGrad. 

“It fits in directly with our mission to enable India to be positioned as the global skill talent capital of the world", Kumar said.

upGrad said 80 per cent of those joining the workforce find it impossible to crack a job. The upGrad course portfolio is committed to making them employable with the right skill sets. According to the company, the hiring costs for corporates are soaring and this saves time and cost for both employer and employee.

Today, upGrad works with over 3,700 companies around the world for their training needs. It is able to understand the employee needs with its over 3 million learner-base over the last seven years and therefore.

“We believe we have the right content, product offering, technology, and trainers to build a strong sense of aspiration for everyone to be job ready,” said Subramanyam Reddy, founder and CEO, KnowledgeHut upGrad,  a firm acquired by upGrad and which provides short-duration upskilling and reskilling courses to professionals. 

“Our fully online learning experience will be for a 6 to 8 month part-time course", Reddy said.

The programmes are majorly online and partly blended, with a few offline centers coming up in major cities. This would allow upGrad to take this opportunity to scale and drive massive employment within the country. 

“We are seeing a lot of demand from Europe and the US for these programmes while India is a massive opportunity that we aim to focus on for the first one year,” said Ashish Sharma, VP - New Business, upGrad. “The world needs a 20 million developer talent pool by 2030 and we see this as a core need to transform our workforce and is a strong offering for all our corporate partners", Sharma added.

As upGrad builds into the largest integrated LifeLongLearning company, this revenue pillar is an important part of its growth plans. The firm aims for this job-enabled segment to contribute  $200 million of its revenue in the next 24 months.

Bucking the slowdown trend within the edtech sector, upGrad said it has remained bullish with its programme completion rate of 80 per cent. About 40 per cent of the company's total revenue is realised from Repeats and Referrals year-on-year (YoY). upGrad is on track to record annual gross revenue of $400-500 million during FY23 out of which about 45 per cent of total revenue will be realised from its own-branded online courses and programmes.

In the edtech space, upGrad competes with players such as Simplilearn, Unacademy, Byju’s and Amazon Academy. It recently raised a funding of $210 million from marquee investors and family offices who join the company cap-table. This round has witnessed participation from investors such as  Bodhi Tree (a JV of James Murdoch & Uday Shankar), family office of Bharti Airtel, Narotam Sekhsaria Family Office (Ambuja Cements and ACC), and Artian Investments (Family Office of Lakshmi Mittal - ArcelorMittal). The funding has helped the firm double its valuation to $2.25 billion, according to the sources.

The upGrad team strength will grow to 7,600 from the present 4,800 in the next three months. The team will also include about 170 full-time faculty, 1,600 teachers, and over 5,000 on-contract coaches and mentors.

With the advent of new-age tech, the job market in India is outgrowing traditional job roles. In the next five years, 40 per cent of Indian employees will need reskilling and 60 per cent will need to upskill to be market ready, according to job data analysed by Monster.com.