Indian upskilling platform NxtWave on Tuesday said it has raised $33 million in a funding round led by global firm Greater Pacific Capital (GPC) as it looks to make acquisitions and expand its footprint in the country.
Existing investor Orios Venture Partners also participated in the current round. In 2021, the company raised $2.8 million in a pre-Series A round led by Orios Venture Partners and Better Capital.
NxtWave is GPC’s fourth investment from its latest fund, alongside investments in Enzen Global Solutions, a provider of energy efficiency solutions to utilities; Near Pte., a SaaS platform focused on location as a driver of value; and Muthoot Microfin, one of India’s largest microfinance institutions.
Launched amid the pandemic in 2020 by Sashank Reddy Gujjula, Anupam Pedarla, and Rahul Attuluri, NxtWave hosts multiple coding programs on its platform with the intent to provide better career growth opportunities to its users. The company claims that over the last couple of years, 1250+ companies, from fast-growing startups to Fortune 500 giants, have hired thousands of NxtWave learners.
“Nearly 63% of Indian graduates are unemployed and an estimated 30 lakh new tech jobs are projected to be created in India within a few years. This gap opens up a total tech-upskilling opportunity of over $8 billion annually,” Anup Jain, Managing Partner, Orios Venture Partners said.
Some of Orios Venture Partners’ other portfolio companies include Pharmeasy, Country Delight, Battery Smart, Beato, Karbon, Zupee, and Kenko.
As demand slowed down significantly with schools and colleges reopening after the pandemic, the entire edtech sector saw a slowdown in funding, which more than halved to $2.4 billion across 93 deals as of Nov 2022 from $5.4 billion across 154 deals during the same period of 2021, according to DealStreetAsia’s proprietary data.
However, despite the overall negative outlook, there are still positive signs of hope, activity, and growth for the sector in 2023. DealStreetAsia spoke to multiple investors, founders, and experts in the edtech space who were all of the view that this year will be more about consolidation and clarity and will see upskilling and higher education startups fare better than K-12 companies.
Higher education and upskilling startups raised $1.1 billion in private equity and venture capital funding as of November 2022, slightly less than the $1.25 billion raised in the first 11 months of 2021, according to data by Tracxn Technologies.
K-12 and test preparation platforms, on the other hand, have seen a 60% decline in funding during the same period. According to the data, K-12 and test prep startups raised $1.78 billion till November 2022 compared with $4.13 billion in the first 11 months of 2021.