AEON acquires Acadgild

AEON Learning Pvt. Ltd, which owns education technology platform Avagmah has bought Bengaluru based education start-up Acadgild for $10 Million in an all-stock deal.

Avagmah is a start-up focused on online degrees and skill development programmes. It claims to have 22,000 students across 66 countries, and has partnerships with more than seven institutes and universities. Acadgild offers skill-based technology courses in big data, deep learning and UI/UX design web development, among others. It works with businesses to offer around 35 skill development courses.

Acadgild had raised initial investment from venture capital firm Jupiter Capital and K. Ganesh of GrowthStory. It works with companies like General Electric, Capgemini, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Oracle Corporation. Currently, around half of AEON Learning’s online students come from Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR, Karthik added. The company has raised $6.5 million till date and expects to reach a student base of over 100,000 in the next five years.

According to a KPMG-Google, the online higher education market is expected to touch $1.96 billion by 2021. Re-skilling and online certification courses currently account for a majority (38%) of the online higher education market, the report added. There has also been a surge in investments in the online education sector, with online skill training start-ups shifting focus from a university-based curriculum to a more industry-oriented training approach.

L&T Infotech to buy AugmentIQ

IT Services and solutions provider L&T Infotech announced that it will acquire Pune based AugmentIQ Data sciences, a start-up offering IP based, big data and analytics solution that allows enterprises derive business benefits from big data.

As a result of this acquisition, L&T Infotech will gain access to MAXIQ, the big data platform developed by AugmentIQ, which is currently servicing one of the world's largest credit bureaus, large banks as well as regulatory agencies. Also, the proprietary identity resolution technology from AugmentIQ is among the best in its class and can be adopted to solve the emerging needs of regulatory authorities across all markets.

MAXIQ from AugmentIQ brings the power of automation and Do-it-Yourself (DIY) to big data. Its end-to-end, self-service approach enables business users to leverage big data technologies such as Hadoop & Spark. The proposed acquisition will enable L&T Infotech to build upon MAXIQ by integrating it within LTI's MOSAIC Decision Science platform. 

L&T Infotech clients are seeking big data solutions that can be implemented quickly and scale as per their requirements. AugmentIQ offers a very versatile platform that can expand instantly and enable accelerated data monetization. During last four years, AugmentIQ have grown rapidly and are working with some major clients in India and globally. 

CureFit acquires controlling stake in Cult

CureFit, a healthcare and fitness start-up has acquired a controlling stake in Cult, which operates two fitness centres in Bengaluru for $3 Million. Started in 2015, Cult tries to differentiate itself from traditional gymnasiums by offering fitness training in the form of martial arts, kickboxing, and other such activities. It doesn’t use traditional gym equipment such as trademills and weights.

Cult, which will continue to run as an independent brand run by Telang, plans to expand to five centres by the end of the year and 25 centres by December 2017. Cult has a unique training model where the trainers mix and match various formats to deliver a holistic fitness regime. The traditional fitness formats are a thing of the past and trainer led group classes are something which will change the face of the fitness industry.

People are moving towards functional training from the traditional ways of gymming. Cult offers a differentiated solution which is very attractive for customers who are bored with gyms. In July, CureFit raised as much $15 Million in Series A funds from Kalaari Capital, Accel Partners and IDG Ventures, one of the most largest early rounds of funding even by an Indian start-up.

CureFit, which has 12 employees, plans to launch an app in the March quarter of next year that will first offer preventive healthcare services. The company is finalizing tie-ups with offline health and fitness service providers before its launch. It may make more acquisitions to boost its offline presence.

Housejoy buys fitness startup Orobind

Amazon backed home services provider, Housejoy, has acquired Orobind, an at-home personal fitness startup, in an all-stock deal as it looks to grow its presence in the fast growing health and wellness space.

The acquisition of Orobind is the second such deal Housejoy is closing in less than a month’s time, spurred by the $23 Million funding round the company closed in December which was led by Amazon. While the exact terms of the deal have not been disclosed, most of the team at Orobind will join Housejoy.

Orobind, which currently operates exclusively in Bengaluru, has over 1000 customers and 135 active fitness trainers on its platform. The acquisition will help Housejoy scale its own personal fitness business which it currently offers in 5 cities across India with 5,000 subscribers. Fitness and wellness is a highly lucrative category for most of the home services players primarily because of high repeat rates and high customer lifetime, value but to leverage it one must have a highly differentiated product.

Rather than looking to expand its offerings to more cities in the country, Housejoy plans to consolidate its business and dwell deeper into each business vertical in each of the cities it’s already present in. The company currently aggregates service providers for pest control, drivers, beauty, electronic repairs etc. and is building its own presence in high-demand categories such as fitness, beauty and laundry.