[Funding alert] Scaler raises $55M from Lightrock India, others

Tech upskilling Scaler (by InterviewBit) on Tuesday said it raised $55 million (about Rs 410 crore) in funding led by new investor Lightrock India. Existing investors, Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global, also participated in the Series B round, a statement said.

With this fresh round of funding, the total capital raised by Scaler Academy since January 2020 stands at $76.5 million, with a valuation of $710 million, it added.

"The entry of Lightrock India into the Scaler family as a new strategic partner will help accelerate the brand's ambition to disrupt India's formal higher education sector, comprising universities and colleges that are unable to meet the growing demand for the new kind of skilled workforce for the country's $200 billion IT sector," the statement said.

The fresh round of funding will allow Scaler to aggressively pursue its international expansion plans, launch new product offerings/business verticals, make strategic acquisitions, invest in best-in-class talent, and grow its customer base in India and globally, it added.

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"We decided to go with Lightrock India and our existing investors (Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global), who share our vision of what we are trying to do at Scaler. The failure of legacy institutions in India's higher education sector, particularly in the IT space, has opened up opportunities for avowed status-quo disruptors like Scaler to push a new kind of thinking that looks beyond cost arbitrage-based success," Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder of Scaler and InterviewBit, said.

He added that technologies like Machine Learning and data science will create a new kind of India, powered by communication technologies like 5G, which will have a far-reaching impact on the country's socio-economic status.

"We are creating the skilling ecosystem that will ensure we succeed by creating a future-ready India," he said.