Edtech start-up Simplilearn has bagged a $45 million investment in a funding round led by GSV Ventures. Other notable investors including Clal Insurance and ADQ’s venture platform DisruptAD also participated in the investment round. 

The Bengaluru-based start-up bagged the investment at a time when most Indian start-ups are failing to get funds at a proper valuation. Some experts are already calling it a ‘funding winter’ session for Indian start-ups. 

The edtech sector is also struggling to generate profitability and most of the highly-valued edtech majors are taking cost-cutting measures by laying off employees. Byju’s, one of the world’s highly-valued edtech majors, earlier announced an employee rationalisation process in a phased manner. It meant a possible termination of 2,500 staff from Byju’s 50,000-strong employee bandwidth. The other players including Unacademy and Vedantu also terminated employees. 

Against this scenario, the recent capital infusion will help Simplilearn to grow and expand its business activities in the coming future. Simplilearn will utilise the prospects of this investment in the company’s expansion plan in India and international markets. 

In the financial year (FY) 2022, Simplilearn registered a 40 per cent in scale growth to Rs 479.7 crore compared to Rs 341 crore in FY21. It also witnessed a 26x increase in losses in FY22. The company reported Rs 5.65 crore as net losses in FY21. In FY22, it shot up to Rs 150 crore in FY22. 

In August 2021, the US-based alternative investment management company Blackstone acquired 60 per cent shareholdings in Simplilearn. While this transaction was happening—Kalaari Capital, Helion Ventures and Mayfield—some of Simplilearn’s existing investors at that time, took an exit.