Intellipaat was launched in June 2011 by Diwakar Chittora and Shilpi Jain to fulfill the growing demand for affordable training in emerging technologies. They started with one client but soon had a flood of corporate tie-ups with the biggest names in business.
Their biggest clients are Ericsson, Wipro, CTS, etc. Diwakar Chittora has personally trained more than 30 corporate and 500 students across the globe, including many CEOs of the companies, on niche technologies. Currently, the company has 150 courses and approx. 4 lakh learners from 30 countries and is poised for big oversees expansion, especially the United States.
BWDisrupt Soumya Gupta interacted with Diwakar Chittora (CEO) and Shilpi Jain (COO), the two core team of Intellipaat to know more about their businessmodel.
What is the Founding date and founders name of Intellipaat?Intellipaat was set up in 2011 by the husband-wife team of Diwakar Chittora and Shilpi Jain, while they held other jobs. The meteoric growth of the company forced them to quit their jobs in 2013 and dedicate all hours to the rapidly growing platform. Currently, Diwakar Chittora is the CEO and Shilpi Jain is COO.
Please share the description of Intellipaat, how was it started?Intellipaat is an eLearning platform for emergent technologies like Big Data, Data Science, Hadoop, Apache, Salesforce etc. In 2011, Diwakar Chittora and Shilpi Jain, both IT professionals, were looking to update their knowledge on Big Data and Hadoop, two of the latest technologies that were disrupting the world. They struggled to find the right training institute and when they did, the course was cost prohibitive. Realizing other IT professionals were struggling too, and knowing how critical it is for IT professionals to keep up with emergent technologies, they launched their own training company Intellipaat, with the objective of providing high-end technology training at affordable prices.
What are the unique key feature/services of Intellipaat?Intellipaat trainers are subject matter experts with a minimum of +14 yrs Industry experience. All courses provide in-depth subject knowledge. To ensure high industry exposure the curriculum is designed to provide 70% practical knowledge in the form of hands-on exercises, project work, assignments and quiz with every course.
How is it different from existing ones?Most people drop out online courses before completion because they do not get the required interaction and support to cross the finish line. Intellipaat, unlike most e-learning platforms, has a very robust feedback system and offers 24*7 support. High premium is placed on student expert engagement. Trainers are regular in answering all queries from learners in the quickest possible time. The combination of pricing, quality, constant engagement and lifetime support – all available in one place has fuelled Intellipaat’s exceptional success.
Please do share funding status of Intellipaat?For seven years, Intellipaat has been running in a bootstrap mode. Scaling to next level will be done soon with funding.
What is your monetization model?Both B2C & B2B. Learners pay course fees for online courses and upgrade their skills on latest technologies. Intellipaat also has +80 corporate tie-ups for upgrading skills of team.
Please share the current traction details of Intellipaat?Intellipaat has a strong hold in providing online trainings in Big Data, Business Intelligence, Data Science and Cloud Training courses across the globe. In last 3 years we have grown learner base from 20K to 4 Lakh which talks about the quality of our courses and services.
What are your future and expansion plans for Intellipaat?The target is to scale up to $10 million by 2019 by maintaining sharp focus on content development. The targets for the next quarter include expansion of B2B tie-ups to add to the 80+ corporate clients and bringing in a larger pool of senior industry veterans into the fold as SMEs.
Consolidation and expansion efforts at Intellipaat have included the addition of 400+ technology experts and industry veterans to strengthen the tutor pool in the recent months. Founded in Jaipur, the company had to shift to Bangalore as its employee count swelled from 24 to approximately 80 people and it is in the midst
Please share the marketing plans?In addition to a very robust Indian market, Intellipaat is planning to leverage the US, UK and other regions around the globe. Sales and marketing drives in the US are planned due to sustained increase in engagement from that particular market.
What are the challenges faced, market size & opportunity for Intellipaat? Keeping ahead of the curve with new technologies is the most challenging and exciting part. Professional certification training market is a big market across the globe as every enterprise needs right skilled and qualified resource to get client projects done at the faster pace with high code delivery.
The opportunities for Intellipaat are consolidation of the Indian market and expansion in US, Europe Middle-east and Africa. Big Data, Data Science & Business Intelligence are the most disruptive and fastest growing forces in the world. Millions of professionals need to be trained and upgraded to meet the growing demand. Intellipaat is poised to play a critical role in the shift from old ways of doing business to the data-driven world.
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Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.