Info Edge (India) Ltd, the parent of jobs portal Naukri.com, has agreed to invest another Rs 8 crore ($1.06 million) in an education services startup Univariety in cash.
Info Edge said in a filing with the stock exchanges that its wholly-owned subsidiary will acquire 3,986 Series A1 compulsory convertible preference shares of Univariety as part of the transaction.
Post the investment, Info Edge’s shareholding in Univariety will increase to 37.9%.
Earlier, Info Edge invested Rs 12.5 crores, translating into a 29.62% stake, in the Hyderabad-based company in December 2017.
Univariety, which is operated by International Educational Gateway Pvt. Ltd, was incorporated in May 2019. It offers education counselling to students and related services to schools and colleges. It offers its services offline and through its website and third-party portals.
The startup's turnover had risen to Rs 7.66 crore in the fiscal year ended 31 March 2019 from Rs 4.4 crore in the previous financial year. It had a turnover of Rs 4.09 crore in the fiscal year 2016-17.
Info Edge's bet on startups
The Noida-headquartered company has made several investments in startups across sectors as part of its larger strategy of maintaining a presence across the country’s growing internet and frontier services ecosystem.
Last month, Info Edge invested in Sunrise Mentors Pvt. Ltd, a Delhi-based company that operates online learning platform CodingNinjas.
Notably, in January, Info Edge floated a venture capital fund to invest in tech and tech-enabled companies. In a filing at the time, the company said it would invest around Rs 100 crore ($14 million) in Info Edge Venture Fund, sponsored through wholly-owned unit Smartweb Internet Services Ltd.
One of its major investments is in food delivery and restaurant search platform Zomato, which earlier in January acquired Uber Technologies Inc's food delivery business, Uber Eats, in India.
Other bets it has made include education-technology startup Adda247, digital logistics platform Shipsy, Happily Unmarried Marketing Pvt. Ltd, and Greytip Software Pvt. Ltd.
