The legacy players in the online education market who have been in the business since before ed-tech became a hot sector are now market leaders. The start-up is one among those players who are on their way to conquering the globe in their ambitious market plans.
Who is Simplilearn?
Simplilearn is an ed-tech start-up headquartered in Bengaluru and is a veteran start-up in India’s online higher education sector. Founded in the year 2010, they are a market leader in its league and provides differentiated offerings in the digital skilling space. They provide training in disciplines like Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, Project Management, Digital Marketing, Data Science, etc.
Simplilearn’s Online boot camp
Simplilearn provides an online ed-tech boot camp by partnering with world leading universities and companies. Through the boot camp, they provide post-graduate and master’s programs as well as certification courses for consumers. The bootcamp is mainly aimed at offering digital skills training.
Simplilearn’s Global Expansion Plans
Simplilearn’s Global Expansion plans come on the heels of their recent investment received by Blackstone, a Private Equity Firm who purchased a majority stake in exchange for $250 M. Simplilearn will take advantage of Black Stone’s global network to fuel its expansion plans. Blackstone’s global expertise in education technology will act as a stepping stone for Simplilearn to go global.
Products going global
With the new funds in place, Simplilearn plans to reinvent the company as the ‘world’s largest digital skilling company’. By leveraging Blackstone’s global footprint, Simplilearn will launch new programmes and build better ed-tech products.
Markets being targeted
Simplilearn will first target the US and European markets as part of their global expansion. They will double down on their primary markets US and India. They will also be expanding to Latin America.
Partnership with global universities
The company will partner with global businesses and universities through Blackstone’s value-add to the firm and their scale. Empowered by the partnerships, Simplilearn will continue its expansion plans across the world.
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Simplilearn will take advantage of Black Stone’s global network to fuel its expansion plans.
What’s in it for me?
Simplilearn’s growth story is a lesson in start-up evolution for budding companies in ed-tech. Their growth and success are attributed to a number of milestones along their journey which have turned out to be defining moments along their growth. Simplilearn broke into the ed-tech market when there were close to 0 market players. Slowly awareness around ed-tech platforms for upskilling grew and so did Simplilearn. What really helped Simplilearn expand were the multiple investment rounds received. This was a crucial milestone since they were able to diversify their product offerings and target global markets.
Finally came the ed-tech revolution which took Simplilearn to an all-time high. When teaching and learning became completely digital, it was just more investments, expansions and new products for Simplilearn. Learning from their journey, ed-tech start-ups need to align their business model with the current market needs. You also need to create an investment worthy business and invest heavily in technology talent. It’s also important to bring disruption into the business at the right time before it’s too late. Expansion is key to growing as an ed tech start-up. You need to target new, uncharted territories and new markets early on.
