The wider world of employment has seen a huge shift in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Looking for a job, finding someone to fill a role, or simply developing professionally are just not the same as they used to be for many of us. So it’s no surprise to see companies that have built…
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UpGrad, a Bangalore-based startup that specializes in higher education and upskilling courses, said on Monday it has raised $185 million in a new financing round that valued it at $1.2 billion. Singapore’s Temasek, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, and IIFL financed the round, first tranche of it — about $120 million — was completed…
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Karan Bajaj, the founder and chief executive of WhiteHat Jr, is leaving the firm a year after selling the startup for $300 million to Indian edtech giant Byju’s. In an email to employees on Wednesday, Bajaj and Byju’s founder and chief executive Byju Raveendran said the departure follows a “mutually decided” decision made at the…
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Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. Last week, Natasha and Alex jumped on Twitter Spaces to discuss the tale of two edtech IPOs: Duolingo, the consumer language learning company, and Powerschool, the enterprise K-12 software platform. It was a rare moment in the sun for the…
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Duolingo landed onto the public markets this week, rallying excitement and attention for the edtech sector and its founder cohort. The language learning business’ stock price soared when it began to trade, even after the unicorn raised its IPO price range, and priced above the raised interval. Duolingo’s IPO proves that public market investors can…
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Many teachers and parents in Indonesia rely on WhatsApp to keep in touch, creating “multiple groups that often become messy and highly ineffective, and result in confusion or lost threads,” says Rizky Aniez, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Gredu. The Jakarta-based startup was created to give everyone involved in the educational process—school administrators,…
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For edtech startups, it’s always been easier to go direct-to-consumer than it is to sell into school districts. The latter has stodgy and strict sales cycles, while the former has a bit more flexibility when it comes to opening up that wallet. The pandemic added validation to this dynamic by supercharging consumer companies like Quizlet and…
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India-based technology startup Salesken.ai has secured an exposed server that was spilling private and sensitive data on one of its customers, Byju’s, an education technology giant and India’s most valuable startup. The server was left unprotected since at least June 14, according to historical data provided by Shodan, a search engine for exposed devices and…
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Indian online learning platform Unacademy is in advanced talks to acquire Rheo TV, a less than two-year-old startup founded by two former Unacademy employees, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The current deal values Rheo TV, a startup that has built a platform to help professional game streamers live stream their gameplays and…
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With the right message, even a small startup can connect with established and emerging stars on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube who will promote your products and services — as long as your marketing team understands the influencer marketplace. Creators have a wide variety of brands and revenue channels to choose from, but marketers who understand…
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