Ronnie Screwvala-founded edtech startup upGrad on Wednesday said it has raised $36.4 million (around Rs 300 crore) in an internal rights issue, even as the funding winter is seen to be pinching the edtech sector hard.
While Temasek contributed Rs 81 crore and Screwvala contributed Rs 212 crore, other minority stakeholders completed the balance, the firm said.
upGrad, which operates out of 31 offices located in India, the US, the UK, the Middle East, Singapore, and Vietnam, told DealStreetAsia in August last year that it needs investments to scale up some of its new businesses.
The company has been on an acquisition spree having most recently bought Centum Learning, a unit of Bharti Enterprises Ltd in Sept, and a slew of other companies including Exampur, Harappa Education and Wolves India.
Last year, upGrad said it plans to invest $30 million to open 10 global campuses and Screwvala told DealStreetAsia that the firm had earmarked as much as $30 million for its expansion in Southeast Asia.
The company in August had raised $210 million in a fresh funding round, at a post-money valuation of $2.25 billion, led by US testing and assessment provider ETS Global and Bodhi Tree, an investment vehicle set up by media veterans Uday Shankar and James Murdoch.
At a time when funding is hard to come by, companies have been finding alternative ways to raise capital such as revenue-based financial, debt financing as well as internal funding rounds.
For FY22, upGrad reported a wider net loss of Rs626.61 crore in FY22 on a consolidated basis, from Rs 211.1 crore in FY2021.