Three-year-old Skill-Lync gets $17.5 million funding from Flipkart founder Binny Bansal and others

• The round was led by Iron Pillar, with participation from Y Combinator, Better Capital and Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal.
• Skill-Lync will also be looking to hire across management roles and expand to international markets soon.
• Other startups offering upskilling courses for engineers include Pesto Tech, Talent Sprint, Masai School and Grey Atom.

Edtech startup Skill-Lync, which offers upskilling courses for engineers, has raised $17.5 million (about ₹130 crore) in a Series A funding round. The round was led by venture capital (VC) fund Iron Pillar, with participation from existing investors Y Combinator and Better Capital.

In addition, Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, former Flipkart executive Sai Krishnamurthy ⁠— who is also the founder of investment firm Xto100X ⁠— and Rashmi Kwatra, founder of Sixteenth Street Capitaljoined as new investors in the round.

This is Binny Bansal’s fourth investment in an edtech startup. He has invested in Unacademy, HashLearn and Crejo.Fun, prior to Skill-Lync.

Skill-Lync, which was founded by Suryanarayanan Paneerselvam and Sarangarajan V Iyengar in 2018, will use this funding to increase the number of courses it currently offers, build a “strong” management team and expand to international markets.

The company currently collaborates with more than 800 industry experts to create their existing course content. It also relies on an in-house team, with experience in companies like Accenture and Samsung, to design such upskilling courses for engineers.

A part of the fund will also be used to double down on corporate partnerships and understand requirements for future talents and more, co-founder Sarangarajan V added. Prior to this, the company raised $150K from Y Combinator in 2019.

“The rapid adoption of new technologies by industries has also created a need for constant upskilling of engineering professionals. Hence, the need of the hour is to have engineers who have knowledge of both engineering fundamentals and how they can be applied to solve real world engineering problems through engineering design and simulation tools,” Suryanarayanan P, cofounder and CEO of Skill-Lync added.

Skill-Lync currently offers two learning models. First, an eight to ten months long masters programme that will focus on providing in-depth industry relevant technical knowledge to students. This would also include several projects, which will help students find relevant jobs.

Second, six-month-long programme at physical skill centers, where students will get hands-on practical experiences from industry experts.

“Engineering education and upskilling outside of Computer Science have seen very little digital disruption over the last two decades. This, combined with the ever-expanding need for real world interdisciplinary applications of engineering in today’s world creates a unique opportunity to establish a multi billion dollar global company with deep moats in this space,” Anand Prasanna, managing partner at Iron Pillar said.

Apart from Skill-Lync, other startups offering upskilling courses for engineers include Pesto Tech, Talent Sprint, Masai School and Grey Atom.

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