Springboard Raises $11 Mn From Reach Capital, Others To Expand Operations

San Francisco and Bengaluru-based online edtech startup Springboard has raised $11 Mn in a post-Series-A funding round led by Reach Capital. Venture capital companies such as Pearson Ventures, International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as its existing investors Costanoa Ventures, Learn Capital, and Blue Fog Capital also participated in the funding round.

With the recently raised funds, Springboard will expand its operations, add more courses, and bring more talent to the company. “We will use this funding to grow our Indian presence with more courses in design and software engineering and continue our expansion into additional geographies,” said Vivek Kumar, Springboard India’s managing director.

Though the current employee strength of the company stands at 130, Springboard plans to increase the headcount to over 200 in the next few quarters.

Springboard has also partnered with US-based tech giant Microsoft to train and provide jobs to 5,000 students in the analytics profession over the next three years through its new Data Analytics Career Track platform, which is co-developed by the tech company.

Further, in this partnership, Microsoft will provide educational content and access to its tools. On the other hand, Springboard will provide mentorship, support and career services.

Founded in 2013 by Gautam Tambay and Parul Gupta, Springboard is a workforce upskilling edtech startup that offers online courses and extensive mentor-based learning for early and mid-level professionals in data science, UX design, digital marketing, and other technology areas. The company has so far raised $20 Mn in funding.

Highlighting the need for upskilling of developers which comes in every three to five years, Kumar said that the company’s industry-designed programmes, combined with in-depth, one-on-one mentorship and career guidance, enable people to achieve their full potential.

The company claims to have enrolled over 14K students for its programmes worldwide. Notably, in 2019, the company has launched three new programmes for tech learners in India. “Springboard plans to grow its Indian presence with more courses in design and software engineering,” Kumar was quoted as saying.

Kumar further claimed that for its skilling courses, the company has so far maintained a 99.9% success rate in job guarantee programmes.

According to a report by Google and KPMG, the edtech market is expected to have a significant impact on the online education sector, which has the potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from $247 Mn at present.

The Indian education market is vast, complex, and has innumerable existing gaps. So, despite the proliferation of both Indian and foreign edtech companies, there is still enough scope to leverage the upskilling game.

In India, Springboard competes with startups such as Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, and Progate which are also leveraging their online platforms in helping tech employees upskill their skills and remain relevant to the changing times.