Professional education platform Imarticus Learning raises Series B funding

Imarticus Learning Pvt. Ltd, a professional education platform, said in a statement on Thursday it has raised $2 million (Rs 13.9 crore) in its Series B round from venture capital fund CBA Capital.

The company will use the funds to expand its international operations and strengthen its presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Pune, it said in the statement.

Imarticus said it plans to venture into three Tier-II locations soon.

The company, which was founded by Nikhil Barshikar and Sonya Hooja in 2012, offers classroom and online programmes in investment banking and financial courses. The firm said it has trained over 30,000 students globally and aims to skill 55,000 students by 2020.

The company claims that over 5,000 students in West Asia (the Middle East), Africa, and Southeast Asia have availed of its online services. Globally, Imarticus’s key focus will be Dubai, Africa and Manila.

Vishal Bharat, founder and director, CBA Capital, said that Imarticus needs sustained support to scale up both online and offline platforms.

Imarticus had raised $1 million (Rs 6.7 crore) from a bunch of investors including venture capital fund Blinc Advisors in 2016.

CBA Capital

CBA Capital is an education-focused venture capital fund backed by the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation (MSDF), US-based social-impact investment foundation Gray Matters Capital and a few private Indian investors.

It invests through Education Catalyst Fund, which had marked the first close in October last year after raising nearly two-thirds of the target corpus.

Geeta Goel, vice-president of mission investing at MSDF, had said the final close of Education Catalyst Fund is expected towards the end of 2018. The Category-II alternative investment fund, floated last September, has a target corpus of $20 million.

The fund’s investments include ed-tech startup Buddy4Study and virtual reality startup Simulanis.

Deals in the broader education space

The Indian education market is expected to almost double to $180 billion by 2020 from $100 million in 2016, buoyed by the rapid expansion of the digital learning market and the world's largest population in the age bracket of six to 17 years, according to a 2016 report by management consulting firm Technopak.

In July, NSPIRA Management Services Pvt. Ltd, which offers services in the education sector, had raised $75 million (Rs 515 crore) from Morgan Stanley’s private equity arm and mid-market PE firm BanyanTree Capital.

Later in the month, Gaja Capital, a PE firm specialising in investments in the lower end of the middle market, pumped in $25 million (Rs 171 crore) in Ahmedabad-based ed-tech firm Educational Initiatives Pvt. Ltd.