Indian tax officials search UpGrad’s edtech offices

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

“This is 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 overall and was valued at $2.25 billion last year.

Reuters first reported about the search.

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

The search follows India’s crime-fighting agency raiding three premises of edtech giant Byju’s and its founder Byju Raveendran earlier this year.