No funding freeze, there's always capital for good business, says Ronnie Screwvala

There is no funding freeze and there will always be capital for “any rock-solid business”, serial investor, entrepreneur and upGrad chairperson and co-founder Ronnie Screwvala has told Moneycontrol.

In an exclusive interview to Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Screwvala also identified reskilling as the next big thing, saying the world was on an “incredible cusp” of the reskilling revolution.

“Almost the common theme around is the revolution of reskilling. Not ever has that been in focus more, and not just in India but around the world–for emerging and advanced markets both,” he said.

“People are finding that the next pull in terms of power and economy is going to come from countries which focus on lifelong learning, which they call the reskilling revolution.”

As layoffs and funding worries mount in the Indian startup ecosystem, Screwvala said good education technology companies don’t require excessive capital. upGrad “didn't raise any external money for the first five years”, he said.

Also read: Layoffs, shutdowns, funding crunch: The Great Indian Startup Party is over

“What happened in the last one and half to two years is because of excess capital raised in edtech, people were spending either in marketing or defocus situations. I think that hubris has stopped because the 10 maverick investors who had come in and funded these startups are finding that they are having issues with valuations,” he added.

Talking about valuations, Screwvala said, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is valuation,” emphasising that nothing was frozen and “for any rock-solid business, there's always capital”.

To a query about valuations, he said, “Everyone’s got their valuations right now, now it's a question of revalidation of those valuations.”

Also read: Sequoia’s message to founders: Focus on profitability, growth at all costs no longer rewarded

Future of edtech

“The (coronavirus) pandemic was huge for K12, not for edtech overall. Higher education is really what we would call where outcomes are measured and where everything is accountable for an ROI which is if I am getting a career out of this,” said Screwvala.

He also said that higher education remained stable during Covid-19 and no correction was needed there.

Davos takeaways

Sharing his takeaways from Davos 2022, he said, “There’s a massive reverberating echo on reengineering and on reskilling revolution. Secondly, globalisation cannot end, especially when you are looking at the push of technology. And lastly, there is a general sense of focus and positivity which most countries are looking at more and more in focus.”