Mesa School Raises INR 34 Cr To Open Startup-Focused B-School

Mesa School of Business has raised INR 34 Cr in a funding round led by Elevation Capital, with participation from angel investors such as Kunal Shah, Vidit Aatrey, Abhiraj Bahl and others.

The startup is looking to deploy the incoming funds to develop a curriculum and deliver it in partnership with startup leaders and potential future employers for a founding cohort of 60 students.

Founded by Ankit Agarwal and Varun Limaye in 2023, Mesa School of Business started by offering a 12-month, full-time PG programme in Startup Leadership. At the end of the programme, the startup claims that the students will get access to opportunities for leadership roles at startups and tech companies in the country.

The founding team of Mesa School said, “We have kept ‘learning by doing’ as the core principle of the program where every candidate will get to learn business directly from startup CXOs and practitioners, build startup businesses from scratch as part of coursework and deeply immerse themselves into Bengaluru’s startup ecosystem.

The higher education startup added that the founding cohort will commence this September, with the fee being INR 14.95 Lakh for the one-year programme. Mesa School added that scholarship support will be there for some students as well.

Mesa School has set the first application deadline at May 28 and claimed that it has received more than 300 applications, with founders expecting the final numbers to be more than 1000.

Further, the B-school said that it has invited startup founders and senior leaders to design the curriculum for the programme, and some of them have agreed to join as faculty members and mentors as well.

Some of the names include Aditya Shrivastava (SVP, Urban Company), Mukul Arora (managing partner, Elevation Capital), Saurabh Jain (founder StableMoney), Rahool Gadkari (cofounder, Neufin), among others. 

India has witnessed a recent rise in higher education, upskilling and reskilling startups in India that are offering PG diplomas and above, focused on new-age subjects such as data science, AI and ML, among others. According to Inc42 data, these startups have raised $2.6 Bn between 2014 and Q1 2023.

Some of the incumbents in the segment include upGrad, Great Learning, Masai School, Eruditus and Springboard, among others. 

Recently, Tata Digital also entered into this segment, launching a new platform NeuSkills and offering courses in data analytics and frontend development. Last month, upskilling unicorn upGrad also picked up an INR 300 Cr investment from Ronnie Screwvala and Temasek.