InnoVen Capital invests Rs 16 crore in Mumbai-based Eruditus Executive Education
Eruditus Executive Education, which offers global executive education programmes, will use the funds to add new programmes to its portfolio and scale business.
InnoVen Capital on Thursday announced that it has invested Rs 16 crore in debt financing in Mumbai-based Eruditus Executive Education, a firm that offers global executive education programmes. According to the press release shared by InnoVen, the funds will primarily be used to add new programmes to Eruditus' portfolio and effectively scale the business. Till date, Eruditus has raised close to $8.2 million funding from Bertelsmann India Investments.
Founded in 2010 by Chaitanya Kalipatnapu and Ashwin Damera, Eruditus offers management and professional development programmes for professionasl and corporates in Dubai, Singapore, and India.
Ashwin said Eruditus expects to enrol over 30,000 students across different courses and clock a 300 percent growth from last year. He said,“InnoVen’s team is very startup oriented and they were able to provide us the perfect solution for our growth needs. We will use these funds to fuel our international growth into markets such as Latin America and Southeast Asia.”
Eruditus collaborates with several executive education arms of business schools like Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania), MIT Sloan School of Management, Columbia Business School, INSEAD, and Harvard Business School to name a few. These schools design their courses, which range from general management to deeper skills like digital business, fintech and data science, in collaboration with Eruditus.
Eruditus currently offers 28 courses and plans to increase this number to 52 by next year.
Ashish Sharma, CEO, InnoVen Capital, in a press release said, “The demand for high-quality learning continues to grow and Eruditus has built a fantastic global franchise, collaborating with top global and Ivy League universities to deliver a unique mix of classroom, online, and blended-learning education to professionals. We believe that Eruditus is well positioned to tap this opportunity and are pleased to be a part of their growth journey.”
InnoVen Capital has funded edtech companies like Byju’s, the new unicorn, and Embibe, which was recently acquired by Reliance.
Debt financing seems to be on the rise. There were 16 debt deals worth $242 million in the first quarter of 2018. In May, Mumbai-based Toppr also raised debt funding of Rs 15.5 crore led by Alteria Capital. The rise of venture debt funds like Trifecta Capital, InnoVen, and IntelleGrow now ensuring that startups do not have to resort only to equity finance to fulfil their capital requirements.