The Bengaluru-based edtech start-up is now part of Skill India's Mission to bridge the massive skill gap in India’s tech sector
Scaler (by InterviewBit), one of India's fastest-growing edtech startups, announced its strategic partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to help India meet its growing demand for Software Development Engineers, Data Scientists and Machine Learning specialists through its unique and effective upskilling programs.
The collaboration will work towards standardising tech upskilling in emerging high-growth areas and recognise it as the appropriate solution to create a large pool of skilled and certified workforce. Through this union, the learners completing the Scaler Academy and Scaler Data Science & Machine Learning (DSML) courses will be awarded a certificate of completion co-branded with NSDC. This alliance will also help Scaler become an integral part of the Skill India Mission that was started in 2015 with a mandate to skill 400 million Indians across key sectors in the country.
"We believe that our partnership with Scaler will not just help certify deserving trained workforce but also help generate appropriate employment opportunities for the youth of the country. NSDC and Scaler will together address the need of the high-growth sectors identified by the Government of India, including IT, electronics, and entrepreneurship. This association has the potential to bridge the supply-demand differences and therefore bridge the ongoing great skills shortage in the tech industry," said Mr Sanjeeva Singh, EVP of the Skill Financing Team from NSDC, joined by Mr Varun Batra, GM, who supported close this partnership.
Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder of Scaler & InterviewBit, said, "Scaler was founded with a specific goal to create a large and relevant skill force to meet the growing demand in areas like data science, machine learning etc. In the last four years, over 30,000 people have joined our unique upskilling programs that comprise world-class pedagogy, an up-to-date curriculum, and trainers & mentors from the tech industry. We are delighted to join hands with NSDC, one of India's most successful public-private partnerships, and become part of Skill India Mission. We believe, through this partnership, Scaler will now have a bigger role to play in bridging India's growing skill gap, particularly in emerging areas within the larger tech sector."
This partnership aims to address the prevailing skill gap in the tech industry by providing upskilling courses, which will now be recognised under NSDC, thereby highlighting the country's support for producing industry-ready tech talents. NSDC endeavours to create a sustainable and enabling training ecosystem. Learners enrolled with Scaler are taught, guided, and mentored by industry veterans and experts from leading tech organisations, including Google, Meta, Netflix, Microsoft, etc. The scheme also helps create a certified, verifiable data repository of all the candidates being trained by Scaler.
Scaler is one of the few edtech startups that has witnessed substantial growth in the past four years amidst edtech and startup layoffs and the funding freeze observed in the startup space in 2022. Despite the volatility, Scaler has expanded its workforce by over 300% in the last year, achieving a growth of over 350% year-on-year and sustained month-on-month revenue growth of 15%. Scaler is currently witnessing a 90 per cent course completion rate with a 94 per cent successful placement rate. In 2022, the company expanded its footprints in the US, launched first-of-its-kind co-living campuses, strengthened its leadership team, and launched its learning app on the Play Store. The edtech startup also became cash-flow positive during this period with a valuation of $710 million, up from about $76.5 million in 2020.
