In December 2022, Scaler’s co-founder and CEO Abhimanyu Saxena told the tech press that the Bengaluru upskilling company had crossed $100 million in annualised revenue run rate and was already cash-flow positive. The audited books for the very year that claim was made in tell a different story: for the financial year ending March 2023, Scaler’s operating entity reported revenue of ₹316.7 crore (about $33 million, $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026) and a net loss of ₹330.3 crore, not a profit.
Three years on, the company that once talked in run-rate and ARR now talks in a different register: FY25 revenue actually fell 5.5% to ₹363 crore, but the net loss collapsed 98% to just ₹2.3 crore, and Scaler turned EBITDA-positive for the first time on record. This is the story of how an interview-prep side project for Facebook recruiters became one of India’s better-known edtech brands, why its numbers and its narrative pulled apart for a while, and how it clawed its way back toward something that looks like a real, if modest, business.
Quick facts
| Company | Scaler (Scaler Academy), operated by Interviewbit Software Services Private Limited (CIN U74999KA2021PTC176674); brand grew out of InterviewBit |
| Founded | InterviewBit launched 2015; relaunched/renamed as Scaler Academy in 2019 |
| Founder(s) | Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena (IIIT Hyderabad alumni) |
| Businesses | Scaler Academy (working-professional courses), Scaler School of Technology, Scaler Neovarsity, Scaler Enterprise, InterviewBit |
| Latest FY revenue | ₹363 crore, FY25 (April 2024–March 2025), down 5.5% year on year (Entrackr) |
| Latest FY profit/loss | Net loss ₹2.3 crore in FY25, down 98% from a ₹139 crore loss in FY24; EBITDA positive at ₹40 lakh (Entrackr) |
| Listed | Private (unlisted) |
| Market value / last valuation | Reported at $710 million (Inc42, DealStreetAsia) to $750 million (Entrackr) after its January 2022 Series B; no newer round disclosed as of September 2026 |
| Key shareholders | Anshuman Singh 29.16%, Abhimanyu Saxena 29.16%, Peak XV Partners 22.61%, Tiger Global 8.13% (FY25 shareholding, Entrackr) |
What they do
Scaler sells intensive, mentorship-driven upskilling courses to Indian software engineers and engineering students who want a faster or more reliable route into well-paying tech jobs than a standard college degree or self-study offers. Its flagship product, Scaler Academy, runs six-month to one-year live, cohort-based programmes in software development, data science and machine learning, and DevOps for working professionals, taught alongside one-on-one mentorship from engineers at larger tech companies. Around this core, the company has built out Scaler School of Technology, a four-year residential undergraduate programme in Bengaluru for school-leavers, and Scaler Neovarsity, an online master’s degree delivered in partnership with the European institution Woolf. The original product, InterviewBit, still exists as a free coding-interview-practice platform and remains the top of Scaler’s funnel.
The origin
Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena met as students at IIIT Hyderabad. Singh joined Facebook in 2010, working on Messenger and chat before moving to London in 2013 to help build out the company’s engineering presence there. Recruiting for that team is where the founding insight came from: he found that the large majority of the Indian engineers he interviewed did not have the technical depth the roles needed, not because they lacked ability, but because nobody had shown them what “good” looked like. Saxena had a parallel path through Progress Software and then Fab.com in New York, after an earlier stint co-founding a home-automation startup, Daksh Home Automation Systems, with classmates.
The two reconnected around that shared observation and launched InterviewBit in January 2015: a free, gamified platform where engineers could practise the kind of coding problems asked in interviews at top technology companies, and where InterviewBit would in turn recommend strong candidates to hiring companies. It grew a large community of engineers quickly. What it had not yet found was a durable business model.
The struggle years
InterviewBit’s original plan was to make money the way many recruitment platforms do: charge companies for successful hires sourced from its pool of practising engineers. That model turned out to be operationally heavy to run at scale and did not, on its own, fix the deeper problem the founders had identified. Free practice problems could tell an engineer what they didn’t know; they could not give them the sustained guidance to close the gap.
The turn came from an unusually specific piece of internal research. Singh and Saxena studied around 100 of their most successful users, people who had used InterviewBit to make real career jumps, and found that 98 of them had something in common that had nothing to do with the platform: an elder cousin, sibling or senior colleague already working at a good company who had informally mentored them. That insight, that structured human mentorship, not more content, was the actual scarce resource, reframed the business. In 2019 the founders relaunched InterviewBit Academy as Scaler Academy, a paid, high-intensity, mentorship-driven programme charging learners directly rather than charging employers per hire.
The pivot bought years of rapid, expensive growth, and the bill came due in FY23: revenue nearly quadrupled year on year to ₹316.7 crore, but the net loss almost doubled to ₹330.3 crore, driven by aggressive spending on new course launches and marketing (Inc42). The company’s first-ever layoffs followed in April 2024, when it cut around 150 people, roughly a tenth of its workforce, concentrated in sales and marketing, five years into its life as Scaler (Entrackr). Co-founder Abhimanyu Saxena described it as a shift to “a new way of working” toward sustainable growth rather than a response to individual performance.
The turning point
The clearest inflection sits between FY24 and FY25. Coming out of the April 2024 layoffs, Scaler entered FY24 (year ended March 2024) still deep in the red: revenue of ₹384.5 crore against a net loss of ₹139 crore, on total expenses of ₹474 crore, of which employee costs alone were ₹230 crore (Entrackr). A year later, in FY25, revenue had actually fallen to ₹363 crore, yet the loss had shrunk 98% to ₹2.3 crore, total expenses were down 23% to ₹365 crore, employee costs were down to ₹169 crore, and advertising spend had been cut 30% to ₹64 crore. For the first time, EBITDA turned positive, at ₹40 lakh (Entrackr). In other words, Scaler did not grow its way to its healthiest year on record; it cut its way there, choosing to shrink the top line rather than keep buying growth with marketing spend it could not sustainably repeat.
The money behind it
- Total raised: about $76.5 million (roughly ₹734 crore) in venture funding, per Inc42’s funding tracker, a figure corroborated independently by Pulse2 and Founder Thesis.
- Series B: $55 million on 31 January 2022, led by new investor Lightrock India, with existing backers Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners) and Tiger Global Management also participating (Inc42; DealStreetAsia).
- Reported valuation: $710 million (Inc42, DealStreetAsia) to $750 million (Entrackr) after that January 2022 round — sources differ on the exact figure, but agree it was the last disclosed valuation event; no newer funding round or valuation has been reported since, as of September 2026.
- Shareholding as of the FY25 filing: founders Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena hold 29.16% each, Peak XV Partners holds 22.61%, and Tiger Global holds 8.13% (Entrackr).
- The company has also made small bolt-on acquisitions to fill out its catalogue, including test-prep platform Pepcoding in May 2023, data-science education firm Applied Roots in March 2022, and coding-education platform Coding Minutes in October 2021 (Tracxn).
How it makes money
Scaler is a direct-to-consumer education business, not a placement agency or an income-share-agreement lender: learners pay, or EMI-finance through third-party lenders, an upfront course fee, and that fee is owed regardless of the eventual job outcome.
- Revenue concentration: course sales made up 99% of operating revenue in FY24, across Scaler Academy, Scaler School of Technology and Scaler Neovarsity combined; the audited books do not split revenue by individual programme (Entrackr).
- Biggest cost, every year on record: people. Employee benefit expenses were ₹230 crore of FY24’s ₹474 crore total spend (49%) and still ₹169 crore of a leaner ₹365 crore FY25 spend (46%) (Entrackr).
- Second-biggest cost, and the one that moved the most: paid customer acquisition. Advertising and promotion ran as high as ₹143.3 crore in FY23, around a quarter of that year’s total expenses (Inc42), before being cut to ₹64 crore in FY25 (Entrackr) — the single biggest lever behind the loss reduction.
- The part people get wrong: Scaler’s marketing language of “100% placement support” refers to mentorship, interview access and career services, not a refund-if-unplaced guarantee; the fee is not contingent on the learner landing a job, unlike an income-share-agreement model used by some rival bootcamps.
The numbers
| Fiscal year (₹ crore) | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
| Revenue from operations | 65.6 | 316.7 | 384.5 | 363.0 |
| Total expenses | 240.0 | 654.6 | 474.0 | 365.0 |
| Net profit/(loss) | (174.0) | (330.3) | (139.0) | (2.3) |
| EBITDA margin | not disclosed | not disclosed | -32.02% | 0.10% (positive) |
Figures are from Scaler’s operating entity’s annual filings as reported by Inc42 and Entrackr. FY23’s total expenses and loss are Inc42’s figures (₹654.6 crore expenses, ₹330.3 crore loss); a separate Inc42 financial-summary page shows slightly different modelled figures for the same year (₹309.4 crore revenue, ₹268.3 crore loss), which is noted here rather than silently reconciled, since it was not possible to confirm which draws more directly from the primary filing.
Where the money comes from
- By programme: the exact split between Scaler Academy, Scaler School of Technology and Scaler Neovarsity is not publicly disclosed; the audited filings report a single combined “sale of services” line (Entrackr, Inc42).
- By geography: the audited entity is entirely India-incorporated, with no separate overseas revenue line disclosed, even though Scaler has marketed a dedicated push into US-based learners since 2022.
- The surprise: the product mix has moved from short reskilling courses toward a four-year undergraduate programme, Scaler School of Technology, that does not itself grant a degree. Scaler’s own admissions FAQ states SST “is not a university/college and does not confer degrees”; students separately enrol in an online Bachelor of Science from BITS Pilani or IIT Madras for a UGC-recognised credential, while Scaler’s foreign master’s partner, Woolf, “is not recognised by UGC/AICTE” (scaler.com).
The risks
- Single revenue stream tied to the tech-hiring cycle: with 99% of operating revenue coming from course fees and no income-share cushion (Entrackr), demand tracks hiring sentiment directly. That is visible in FY25’s 5.5% revenue decline even as costs and losses improved (Entrackr).
- Growth has so far leaned on paid marketing: cutting advertising spend 30% in FY25 was the single biggest reason losses fell 98%, but advertising also ran as high as roughly a quarter of total costs in FY23 when revenue was growing fastest (Inc42, Entrackr) — reaccelerating growth may require reaccelerating that spend, and with it, the losses it once drove.
- The credential sits partly outside Scaler’s own control: Scaler School of Technology’s own certificate is not a degree, and its online master’s partner Woolf is not UGC/AICTE-recognised; the formally recognised undergraduate credential comes from an affiliated BITS Pilani or IIT Madras programme, not from Scaler itself (scaler.com FAQ).
The takeaway
The most useful lesson from Scaler’s numbers is not about edtech specifically, it is about which metrics to trust. A run-rate or an ARR figure quoted in an interview is a marketing number: it can be measured on a favourable month, annualised optimistically, and paired with a claim of being cash-flow positive with no external verification attached. A net profit or loss figure in a Registrar of Companies filing is an accounting number, audited, dated and comparable year to year. Scaler’s own trajectory shows how far apart those two can sit: a $100 million ARR claim for December 2022 sat alongside an audited loss of over ₹330 crore for the surrounding financial year. The company’s more recent story, cutting costs hard enough to turn EBITDA-positive on a shrinking top line, is a less exciting headline than “$100 million ARR,” but it is the one that shows up, unclaimed, in the filed accounts.
Frequently asked questions
Is Scaler Academy the same company as InterviewBit?
Yes. InterviewBit, launched in January 2015 by Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena, was renamed and relaunched as the paid Scaler Academy in 2019. InterviewBit still operates today as a free coding-practice platform under the same company.
Who owns Scaler?
Per its FY25 shareholding pattern reported by Entrackr, founders Anshuman Singh and Abhimanyu Saxena each hold 29.16%, Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India) holds 22.61%, and Tiger Global holds 8.13%.
Is Scaler Academy profitable?
Not fully, but close. In FY25 (year ended March 2025) it reported a net loss of just ₹2.3 crore, down 98% from ₹139 crore the year before, and turned EBITDA-positive for the first time on record, at a 0.10% margin (Entrackr).
Does Scaler School of Technology grant a degree?
No. By Scaler’s own admissions FAQ, SST is a certificate programme and “does not confer degrees.” Students separately enrol in an affiliated, UGC-recognised online Bachelor of Science from BITS Pilani or IIT Madras to receive a formal degree.
How much funding has Scaler raised, and what is it worth?
Scaler has raised about $76.5 million in total, most recently a $55 million Series B on 31 January 2022 led by Lightrock India with Sequoia Capital India and Tiger Global. That round valued the company at $710 million (Inc42, DealStreetAsia) to $750 million (Entrackr); no newer valuation has been reported as of September 2026.
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).
- Inc42, “Upskilling Startup Scaler Academy Raises $55 Mn, Valuation Touches $710 Mn,” February 2022
- Inc42, Scaler Academy funding tracker page, accessed September 2026
- Inc42, “Scaler’s Loss Almost Doubles To INR 330 Cr In FY23, Operating Revenue Jumps Over 4X,” February 2024
- Inc42, InterviewBit/Scaler Academy financials pages, accessed September 2026
- Entrackr, “Scaler nears Rs 400 Cr revenue in FY24; losses down by 58%,” January 2025
- Entrackr, “Scaler revenue declines to Rs 363 Cr in FY25; cuts losses by 98%,” 2026
- Entrackr, “Tech upskilling startup Scaler lays off 150 employees,” April 2024
- DealStreetAsia, “India’s Scaler Academy raises $55m from Lightrock, Sequoia, Tiger Global,” February 2022
- Pulse2, “Scaler: How This Technical Education Company Grew To $100 Million In ARR,” 2023
- Tofler, Interviewbit Software Services Private Limited company filing summary, accessed September 2026
- Tracxn, Scaler company profile and Interviewbit Software Services Private Limited legal-entity page, accessed September 2026
- Founder Thesis, “From Hacking Facebook to Hacking Education: The Anshuman Singh & Scaler Dossier”
- Scaler, official “Scaler AI Program 2026” and Scaler School of Technology admissions FAQ pages, scaler.com, accessed September 2026
Found an error? Write to us and we’ll correct it in the open, dated, on the piece.