90% of people who sign up for courses here complete it: Eruditus CEO Ashwin Damera

90% of people who sign up for courses here complete it: Eruditis CEO Ashwin Damera. 

Bengaluru: Mumbai-based ed-tech startup Eruditus' valuation recently doubled to $800mn after it raised over $100 million from Prosus Ventures, Leeds Illuminate and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Eruditus, which offers executive education from institutes such as MIT, Harvard, Berkley, INSEAD and the IITs says it has a course completion rate of 85-90%, with offices in Mexico and Shanghai.

Eruditis founder & CEO Ashwin Damera spoke to ET NOW on his global ambitions & backed the Govt's decision to ban Chinese apps. We started by asking him if it would be right to compare Eruditus with Coursera. 

"We are fairly global, the most global ed-tech startup coming out of India. 80% of our students come from abroad. We are an Indian startup with global ambitions. You can look at us as a Coursera but Coursera is a MOOC platform, more of a content library. We have a course completion rate of 85-90% with courses from MIT,Harvard, Berkeley, INSEAD, IITs XLRI and MICA," Damera said. 

While it has 1 lakh students overall,it has 20,000 students in India. It also counts China and Latin American as a significant market, with 15% of its courses taught in Spanish, Mandarin and Portuguese. 

"We have 65 people in Mexico, 35 people in Shanghai, the local presence that we have built over the years. We are present in US, Singapore, Dubai, Mexico, Shanghai and will soon be present in Sao Paulo and Europe," he added. 

Some of the courses in high demand include digital skills, digital strategy, AI and data science skills, Python, Machine learning, fintech, blockchain and cybersecurity.

Eruditus was founded in 2010 by Ashwin Damera and Chaitanya Kalipatnapu. This is Damera's second venture, the first being Travelguru which was sold to Travelocity in 2009. The founders still own over 50% in the company. It broke even recently and hopes to double revenue to $200 million in the next fiscal. The funding in Eruditus comes amid heightened interest in ed-tech startups in India. 

"Few months back, ed tech was not getting attention-today people are saying it's getting too much attention. We didn't raise an institutional round for the first 7 years, were bootstrapped till then. It took us 7 years to figure out the product-market fit," Damera said. 

He also backed the government's decision to ban Chinese apps. I think ultimately every startup benefits from the ecosystem we exist in, so for whatever reason if the Govt says its banning apps I fully endorse that view because my country always comes first."