Masai School makes its first acquisition with Design Shift Academy

With a vision to transform into a complete career school, Bengaluru-based edtech startup Masai School has announced its first acquisition of the design institute Design Shift Academy.

While the details of the deal were undisclosed, Prateek Shukla, Co-founder and CEO, Masai School said in a conversation with YourStory,

"This is our first step towards transitioning from a pure coding school into a career school. This acquisition will help introduce programmes on UI and UX Design, and product management." He added that the whole team of Design Shift Academy will be joining Masai.

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"While the transition will take a little while, the Design Shift Academy is now a part of Masai. There is a growing need for coders, be it frontend or backend, to understand how UI and UX design works, and drive products in the right direction. With this, we look forward to making design education a multidisciplinary aspect through this acquisition. We hope to continue innovating across our learning programs, and achieve our vision of being the most trusted platform for students to come and start their career." said Prateek.

Founded by Preeti Sheokand and Sudhir Mor in 2017, Bengaluru-based Design Shift Academy offers weekend skilling courses in UI/UX Design. The bootstrapped company started as a home-based business with just eight students, and today has a student base across India and countries like Turkey and Australia.

The company currently has a 15-member team of designers who work full-time jobs and teach design over the weekends. Speaking of the acquisition, Sudhir told YourStory,

"There seemed a natural fit and alignment with the team at Masai School. We have been in talks for close to a year now. We were doing great in design and wanted to expand into coding, and Masai wanted to expand into design. Our philosophies aligned, thus instead of doing things separately, we thought of joining hands."

Masai School currently offers programmes in full-stack web and Android development, and follows the ISA or Income Sharing Agreement model which offers learners the ‘study now pay later’ option. In March 2021, the company closed its Series A round of funding at $5 million.

The company stated Design Shift will continue to focus on its own goals and operate under its own umbrella post the acquisition by Masai School. The new design programmes to be introduced by Masai School will include six projects, with portfolios and live projects that offer learners the experience of collaborative work between digital designers and software developers.

On completion of the course, learners will receive assistance in portfolio preparation and review, mock interviews, and job placements. The company also aims to introduce programmes in Product Management.