The Data Science Education Consolidation
Top Stories of the week by Analytics India Magazine
On the one hand, edtech companies like BYJU'S and upGrad are gearing towards consolidation, acquiring smaller data science and tech-focused firms. On the other hand, traditional brick and mortar training institutions like NIIT and Aptech seem to be lost in the mists of time.
Last year, BYJU'S acquired ten companies for a whopping USD 2.5 billion. Like its parent company, online higher and professional education provider Great Learning – acquired for USD 600 million last year – is also looking at acquisitions. Recently, the company acquired Singapore-based Northwest Executive Education in a cash and equity deal.
Meanwhile, upGrad acquired INSOFE for USD 33 million last month. The edtech firm has also acquired TalentEdge and KnowledgeHut.
"These business movements will accelerate cost-efficiency and empower us with a wider audience reach for further cementing our leadership position in India's lifelong learning market," said Mayank Kumar, co-founder of upGrad. He said upGrad's analytics vertical has witnessed revenue growth of 50 per cent last year.
It's not just big companies upping the merger and acquisition game in the data science education space; smaller companies are also making great strides.
Bengaluru-based edtech startup Scalar Academy acquired learning platform AppliedRoots for USD 50 million to strengthen its data science, and AI/ML offerings. This is its third acquisition after Coding Elements and Coding Minutes last year.
Three years back, Manipal Group acquired Jigsaw Academy. Two years ago, the National Stock Exchange's education arm – NSE academy – acquired Talentsprint, a prestigious name in AI/ML, data science and analytics education.
The list goes on and on.
What’s in store?
Answers to this question lead us to market consolidation. Once an industry is formed, it goes through four stages of consolidation – or disappears.
upGrad's Kumar said the edtech sector has been consolidating over the last year. However, he believes this might slow down now, given the current circumstances.
KnowledgeHut founder Subramanyam Reddy said the data science domain growth leads to a balanced growth of the data science edtech industry. Citing pandemic and various government policies, he said the edtech industry is likely to remain bullish in the coming months. "The need for data science has never been more relevant, and we feel it will continue to drive overall growth in this sector," said Reddy.
Training institutes like NIIT and Aptech had the run of the IT education space until a decade back. Every major city and town had such training institutes where students could get certified in a range of computer skills. Today, most of these physical institutes had to diversify or move to digital platforms to survive.
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