Ronnie Screwvala’s co-owned online higher education company, upGrad is set to acquire Talentedge for around ₹ 350-400 crore.

upGrad will acquire Arrina Education Services, the holding company of Talentedge Education Ventures.

“We are leaders by far in the higher education space in India,” Screwvala, chairperson of upGrad said. “Currently we are twice as much as the next player, but we want to grow the gap to 4X before we branch out.”

He added that upGrad has cemented its leadership position as the most integrated player in the higher education in Asia, serving learners and working professionals across the age group of 18-50 years.

“Talentedge has meticulously built a strong business over the last decade and stayed the course in this space where most did not survive, and we are very pleased to welcome them at upGrad as we build one of the largest edtech companies in the world,” Srewvala said.

Talentegde chief executive Aditya Malik said, “Talentedge will continue to work as-is with its university and institute partners to deliver the quality education to its leaners across degree and certification programmes.”
Last month, upGrad merged upGrad Jeet (The Gate Academy), upGrad Campus (originally Impartus) and upGrad KnowledgeHut to consolidate and create one parent company.

“It was always a vision to be an integrated company. I did the same in media (UTV Software Communication) and even in edtech, we will follow an integrated approach,” said Screwvala.

However, he added that while it seems that upGrad is on an acquisition spree. it is not. “It may look that we are M&A aggressive, but we are not. I am a firm believer of build versus buy. However, this space is now open for some sense of consolidation. For us, the criterion for M&A is something that becomes very much an integral part of us the nest day it comes.”

Hitting a valuation of $1.2 billion with a $185 million funding round in August, upGrad recently turned a unicorn.