Edtech giant upGrad has announced a 100 percent merger of test-prep providers for a government jobs platform— Exampur, for an undisclosed amount.
Co-founded in 2018 by Vivek Kumar and Vardan Gandhi, the Noida-based learning platform Exampur claims to have a user base of over 10 Mn students and offers over 200 test-prep courses for government jobs. It claims, that most of its content is delivered through its 27+ YouTube channels including ones for the UPSC, SSC, defense, banking, teaching, and other state-level government job preparations.
Further, Exampur looks to close INR 70 Cr revenue ($7.5 Mn) this fiscal.
Cumulatively, the company said, it has a growing subscriber base of over 12 Mn with an average viewership of 2.5 Mn students and leads the Hindi-speaking markets across New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. It said, 90 percent of paid users of Exampur are from Tier-2, 3 and 4 markets.
Additionally, Exampur offers value adds like online test series, free quizzes, and live scholarship tests to help aspirants assess their professional competencies and streamline their learning process. It claims to have one of the largest study material repositories and e-books portfolio for candidates who can access them anytime at their convenience.
Commenting on the development, Vivek and Vardan, Cofounders of Exampur, said, “It’s undeniable that the number of educated candidates in India is growing exponentially yet they are unemployed. It is also being supported by the pandemic-related disruptions, geopolitical situations, and rising inflation that negatively affect the employment elasticity within the country. Hence, we want our learners to walk that extra mile to understand the key to cracking such competitive exams and this is where we have created a hybrid learning model through our digital presence. We are happy to have strong leadership support through upGrad which has already built a business that is set to outlast its peers and shall accelerate our growth in the coming times. We look forward to making Exampur a household name and with upGrad, we see it reaching there really fast.”
upGrad, on the other hand, was founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar, Ravijot Chugh, and Phalgun Kompalli. It offers higher education courses across the world. The edtech unicorn, which entered the coveted unicorn club in August last year, claims to have a user base of 3 Mn in over 100 countries.
Exampur is upGrad’s second acquisition, counting Harappa Education which upGrad acquired last month. Exampur and Harappa both belong to a similar category (another edtech platform). Also, upGrad raised $225 Mn in a fresh funding round from James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems LLC and Educational Testing Service (ETS) in June this year.
And just last month, upGrad acquired B2B ed-tech startup Harappa Education for $38 Mn (INR 300 Cr).
“We’ve created an integrated learning portfolio for our learners and within that matrix, we see test-prep as a high potential growth driver. I realise that it comes with a high customer acquisition cost (CAC), but it also delivers higher returns in terms of outcomes. Therefore, we wanted a partner with the right set of DNA within this space and Exampur seamlessly fits into our LifeLongLearning jigsaw. Both, Vivek, and Vardan come with an extremely defined goal of becoming the enablers than just providing a content library. I’m confident that their day-on-day live delivery capabilities with 200+ teachers through its channel are set to redefine vernacular learning for a larger base of youth across Bharat,” said Gaurav Kumar, President – Corporate Development, upGrad.
