Tutorial services company Career Point Infosystems, that roped in Goldman Sachs and Citigroup among eight other institutional backers as anchor investors as part of its public float, has opened with a bang on the local stock exchange. The scrip listed at 49% premium to its issue price of Rs 310 and in mid-day trading hour is quoting 90% above the issue price that values it at around Rs 1,073 crore ($241 million).
Career Point was formed ten years ago by the Maheshwari family, who own 60% stake post public float. It provides tutorial services for engineering and medical entrance exams and has presence through 33 centres half of which are operated by the company with the rest as franchisee centres.
The company counts amongst its investors Volrado Venture Partners who invested in the firm three years ago and post issue holds 5.5% stake. Other pre-IPO investors in the education service firm include Franklin Templeton Asset Management (India) Private Limited that put in Rs 50 crore last year and owns 11% post issue, which raised raised Rs 115 crore. The firm also raised Rs 10 crore from Infosys co-founder Nadathur S. Raghvan early this year.
Education is fast turning out to be a darling of investors who see it as a sunrise industry, specially after the success of Educomp. The largest recent deal in the education space has been PremjiInvest' investment of $43.32 million (about Rs 214 crore) in Manipal Universal Learning Pvt Ltd. In the test preparation space specifically Matrix Partners India invested Rs 100 crore in FIITJEE Ltd while Milestone Religare put in Rs 25 crore in IMS Learning Resources.
Other ventures that got funded this year include Pathways World School, Resonance Eduventures Pvt Ltd, Speakwell English Academy and IL&FS Education & Technology Services Ltd.
Many others are in the process of raising funds like online tutoring-to-formal school enterprise TutorVista Global Pvt Ltd that has attracted interest from a string of marquee global and domestic funds such as Temasek, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), ICICI Ventures and Barings Asia among others as looks to see through a $50-million fund-raising exercise. TutorVista is already backed by British publishing major Pearson, Manipal Education & Medical Group besides private equity funds Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Ventures.
