India tax officials search edtech UpGrad offices

Officials from India’s GST tax department are searching the offices of UpGrad, an edtech unicorn that counts Temasek, James Murdoch’s Lupa Systems and World Bank’s International Finance Corporation among its backers, the startup said Wednesday.

“It’s a routine survey and we are fully compliant and cooperating with the GST department,” said Koell Hemdev, Head of Legal at UpGrad, in a statement.

The startup, founded by Ronnie Screwvala (pictured above), has raised $600 million altogether and was valued at $2.25 billion last year.

Reuters first reported about the searches.

Eight-year-old UpGrad specializes in higher education and upskilling courses. It offers students over 100 courses in data science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain, finance, programming and law in collaboration with universities such as Michigan State University, the IIT Madras and IIT Delhi, and Swiss School of Business Management, Geneva.

The searches follow India’s crime-fighting agency searching three premises of edtech giant Byju’s and its founder Byju Raveendran earlier this year.