B2B gold rush at edtechs as AI, GCCs fuel demand

As the edtech sector grapples with waning interest in its core, consumer-focused online learning courses post-pandemic, major edtech and upskilling companies like Simplilearn, upGrad, and Emeritus are strategically shifting gears towards enabling enterprise learning.

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Even as companies say that the conventional consumer model is still very much in vogue, they are working towards building their B2B (business-to-business) businesses, backed by corporations racing to upskill employees for the artificial intelligence (AI) age, and by the expansion of global capacity centres (GCCs) in India.

The goals are lofty. Mumbai-based upGrad, a traditionally consumer-facing business, expects 30-35% of its business coming from B2B in the next few years, from 20% currently. Simplilearn, which has offices in the US, Singapore and Bengaluru, and offers courses ranging from AI to digital marketing, gets 30% of its revenue from its enterprise segment, and expects a 50:50 split in two to three years.

Bengaluru-based And Scaler, which focuses on software development and data science courses and introduced a B2B vertical this year, expects it to contribute 10-20% of revenues in the first fiscal year (FY26).

Let's start with Scaler. The startup, traditionally a directto-consumer player, is focusing its B2B business towards companies with a headcount of 2,000-20,000 employees and those that have set up a GCC in India.

"Most large enterprises outsource their software needs, and it lands in an Indian GCC," said Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler, identifying the training of GCC staff as a key revenue stream.

"In the first year, revenue from enterprise will be sizeable," Saxena said, adding that the company has already signed deals with a few Fortune 500 companies, but declined to share the names.