Emeritus, the Indian unicorn that attracted Softbank, lands in Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Emeritus, an Indian unicorn that Softbank attracted with a platform that offers online executive education courses, is landing in Brazil.

Founded by Ashwin Damera and Chaitanya Kalipatnapu, the company has made a name for itself by partnering with some of the world’s most prestigious universities – a bet that’s paying off.

The startup raised US$650 million in a Softbank-led round in the middle of last year, giving it a valuation of US$3.2 billion – its U.S. competitor Cousera, which goes public in 2021, is worth US$2.4 billion on the Nyse.

With a strategy increasingly focused on mergers and acquisitions – Emeritus just closed a US$350 million credit line with Canadian pension fund CPP – the startup is diversifying its geographic footprint with expansion into Brazil.

The Mumbai-headquartered company already had a global presence – 36% of its revenue came from the U.S., 12% from India, and 15% each from Europe and Latin America (primarily Mexico) – but it still didn’t include the largest country in the Southern Hemisphere.

The story began to change in September, when Emeritus hired Andrea Mansano – a Brazilian executive who ran EF’s Education First operation and worked for technology companies such as SAP and HP – to lead the Latin American operation and, of course, to grow in the Brazilian market.

After five months, the executive will launch the Brazilian version of Emeritus Enterprise, a vertical series of executive courses aimed at businesses. The edtech company is gathering a group of 60 HR executives tomorrow for a luncheon at Fasano, where it will unveil the Emeritus platform.

Unlike Coursera, which became known for offering recorded courses from major universities, Emeritus is developing the course from the ground up in partnership with universities, with a platform that allows for constant interaction – a forward-thinking success that came before covid-19.

“We are not a cold platform where there is no interaction. This is not about watching the video and ‘it’s over.’ We’re about delivering the outcome and being accountable for it,” Mansano says.

One of Emeirtus’ unique selling points is its engagement rate, with 90% of students completing courses started on the platform.

The startup has a large team that prepares the courses – including translation, tutorial, and support. There are over 2.3 thousand employees worldwide, including almost 500 in Mexico (from where the Brazilian business is largely touched).

To attract Brazilian companies to the platform, Emeritus relies on the expertise of partner universities – there are nearly 300 courses in the portfolio of 70 partner universities, including such well-known names as Harvard, Wharton, Insead and MIT.

In Brazil, Insper was the first company to join this platform. In two weeks, Mansano announced the addition of two more national universities.

By focusing on executive education – which includes courses in high-demand areas such as artificial intelligence and digital transformation – an audience that is more willing to pay for courses, Emeritus has generated good revenue per student compared to its competitors, an analysis by specialized website YourStory found.

While Coursera generated US$415 million in revenue with 97 million students enrolled on the platform, Emeritus expects to reach US$500 million by 2022 with 3 million registered users. Currently, 250,000 students take a course through Emeritus.

With information from Pipeline

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