Exclusive: Varun Garg Quits Edtech Unicorn upGrad, Joins Nandan Nilekani’s EkStep

Varun Garg, president of Learning Experience at Ronnie Screwvala-led edtech unicorn upGrad, exited the startup on August 31, Inc42 has learnt.

Garg, who worked with upGrad for around 7.5 years, announced his departure in an internal mail. Inc42 has accessed the mail.

Garg looked after the content curriculum and product at the startup and led a team of around 480 members.

Confirming his departure, Garg told Inc42 he has joined EkStep, a non-profit organisation founded by Nandan Nilekani which aims to offer learning opportunities to students through a collaborative, universal platform that facilitates creation and consumption of educational content.

A mail sent to upGrad on the development did not elicit any response till the time of publishing this story. 

upGrad cofounder and MD Mayank Kumar, in a mail sent to employees, said Kshitij Jain, Raj Reddy, Abhishek Agarwal, and Ashish Nagar will take over the responsibilities of Garg. While Jain and Reddy will lead the content team, Agarwal will look after the delivery team. Nagar will lead the QC/BCT/Inbound team, the mail, accessed by Inc42, said.

The top-level exit comes almost ten months after upGrad CEO Arjun Mohan quit the company. 

“After almost 3 years at the helm, I have decided to move out of upGrad… While I look back on the years at UpGrad, I feel happy about the incredible company we have built which helped so many working professionals upskill. The aspects of growth and other metrics were just outcomes of giving the customers what they aspired for,” Mohan said in a Linkedin post while announcing his departure. 

Mohan joined BYJU’S in July this year. 

Founded in 2015 by Screwvala, Kumar, Phalgun Kompalli and Ravijot Chugh, upGrad is backed by the likes of Temasek, Murdoch’s Lupa Systems, International Finance Corporation, and IIFL. It has raised a funding of over $650 Mn to date.

The edtech startup has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In July, GST officials visited upGrad’s office, which the startup termed as a routine survey. Prior to that, it laid off 40% of workforce at newly-acquired subsidiary Harappa Education in January this year. It also fired 120 employees at its video learning arm upGrad Campus in March this year. 

The startup also shut its data science training platform, International School of Engineering (INSOFE) abruptly in Hyderabad, in April, inviting protests from students who were reportedly promised jobs at the end of the course.