“upGrad 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 (merger and acquisition) opportunities, expand graduate and post-graduate degree portfolio in India, and scale up operations to achieve its $2 billion revenue goal by 2026, thereby reinforcing its position as a global higher-edtech leader emerging from India,” it said.

Entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala, Mayank Kumar and Phalgun Kompalli owned UpGrad offers job-linked online degrees, diplomas and certificate courses in collaboration with top Indian and global universities. It has over 100 courses and partners universities like the Michigan State University (US), Liverpool John Moores University (UK), Deakin Business School (Australia), Duke Corporate Education (US), Swiss School of Business Management, (Geneva), IIT Madras, IIM Kozhikode, among others.

“We welcome Temasek in our mission to power career success for each and every member of the global workforce as their trusted LifeLongLearning partner and drive meaningful career outcomes. This capital will further fuel our commitment towards global expansion as well as deeper India penetration, as we march forward with our goal of making India the teaching capital of the world,” the three co-founders said in a joint statement.

Credit Suisse acted as the exclusive financial advisor to upGrad, and Rajaram Legal acted as legal advisor.

After the disruptions caused by covid-19, online education has picked up in India and worldwide, giving a fillip to edtech players both in mainstream and ancillary education space. This, in turn, had given a boost to upGrad and the company recorded a revenue growth of 100% last year. It claims that it has garnered 1 million “learners across 50+ countries.”

The start-up earlier this month had said it was aiming at 25% revenue growth in the April-June quarter of 2021-22.