Scaler makes fourth acquisition in 2 years, absorbs Delhi-based Pepcoding

Scaler's acquisition of Pepcoding comes on the heels of the company's move to open an offline residential undergraduate programme in Bengaluru, called Scaler School of Technology. Representative image

Edtech platform Scaler has bought Delhi-based coding platform Pepcoding, in its fourth acquisition in the last two years, as the Tiger Global-backed company looks to strengthen its offering in the tech education space.

Scaler did not disclose the size of the transaction. In the last two years, Scaler has acquired  AppliedRoots, Coding Minutes, and Coding Elements to strengthen its tech offerings. Pepcoding's acquisition will further help the company in growing across various business units, such as strategy, product design, B2B enterprise, operations, and instructor org, the company said in a statement on May 31.

Company rejig

Post the transaction, Pepcoding's entire team has merged with Scaler and its co-founder Sumeet Malik has joined the merged platform as an instructor and content creator to help improve the learner experience, especially in the Low-Level Design (LLD) curriculum, Scaler said.

Scaler's acquisition of Pepcoding comes on the heels of the company's move to open an offline residential undergraduate programme in Bengaluru, called Scaler School of Technology. Scaler said that Pepcoding will play an important part in developing the offline institute.

"(Pepcoding) Their experience with undergraduate students will come in handy to our recently launched residential undergraduate programme, the Scaler School of Technology. Pepcoding's diverse talent pool and Sumeet's extensive industry expertise will help accelerate the pace we are working towards achieving our vision and mission," said Abhimanyu Saxena, co-founder of Scaler and InterviewBit.

The bigger picture

Pepcoding, a platform for undergraduate students with both offline and online courses that enables them to improve their coding skills, has been bootstrapped since it was founded in 2017. As of March 31, 2021, the company had a revenue of Rs 3.4 crore and was profitable with net profit of Rs 60 lakhs.

"Like Scaler, we are excessively focused towards the success of our students and firmly believe that the nation has enough raw talent to one day build products and companies that will dominate the world, similar to what organisations like Google, Microsoft and Uber have done," said Malik, co-founder and CEO of Pepcoding.

"All they need is the appropriate direction and access to opportunities. This strategic union with Scaler will help us take a step towards revolutionising how India learns and works with technology.," he added.

Last year, Moneycontrol reported that Scaler had earmarked $50 million for mergers and acquisitions as the company wanted to expand aggressively after raising a $55 million round led by Tiger Global in Series B.

Scaler, an online tech education platform launched in 2019 by InterviewBit Technologies, offers a structured programme for upskilling technology capabilities of learners.

The company was last valued at $710 million as of February 2022.