CL Educate

About

CL Educate was established in 1995 and is one of India’s leading providers of educational and training services. The company has four businesses: (i) test preparation; (ii) education content and publishing; (iii) vocational and further education and (iv) K-12 Schools. The Company is led by a highly seasoned management team and a board of directors comprising established industry leaders. CL Group has also established corporate governance practices on par with India’s best corporates.

Insights

Scale

Since our investment in 2007, CL Educate has experienced significant growth with revenues growing 4x.

Transformation

From a MBA test prep company with a large presence in the northern part of India to a complete education services provider across India, serving students aged from 2 to 25 years old.

Partnership

An active role in fund raising, corporate strategy, mergers and acquisitions, financial planning and governance.

"CL is one of the best recognized education brands in India. Started nearly 20 years ago by Satya, Gautam and their IIM batchmates, CL has been able to balance strong institution building with the nimbleness of a startup. Its biggest strength is a strong culture of risk taking, ownership, openness, honesty and innovation and I’ve seen this permeate right through the organization from its founders to its new hires. CL is an institution built to last but equally a high growth machine delivering earnings growth of 50+% every year."

Imran Jafar

General Partner, Gaja Capital

"Gaja is more of an entrepreneurial venture than a classic cookie-cut venture fund. Their understanding of entrepreneurship including the unstructuredness, the risks, the pivots is among the better that I have seen. In an emerging India, I am sure it will emerge as a very successful fund over the next decade."