Educational holding company Ultimate Education plans initial public offering (IPO)

In the near future, the company intends to raise capital through a pre-IPO and by issuing bonds, for which it has already received a credit rating, Moseikin said.

The general director of the Smart Ranking agency, Daria Ryzhkova, recalled that Skillbox, Skyeng and other projects had previously announced their intention to go public, but none of these companies have completed the process yet. He noted that after 2022, many companies are postponing such decisions, although it seems a logical step for industry leaders. Ryzhkova added that growth in the continuing education segment depends on the development of new niches, such as training and business retraining.

The founder of the First Institute of Financial and Investment Technologies, Alexey Primak, estimated Ultimate Education at 2-2.5 billion rubles, citing rapid growth in income and high demand for retraining. According to him, many middle-aged people are interested in developing their skills and have the means to do so.

Anna Avakimyan, an analyst at RegBlock, believes Ultimate Education has good prospects for raising capital, but warned that high levels of competition in the market, rising software costs and limited lending opportunities could become barriers to growth. company development. Avakimyan noted that universities are also becoming competitors, creating their own educational services divisions.

Softline Venture Partners CEO Elena Volotovskaya highlighted the growing demand for full-time training. In his opinion, investors will support companies that can enter the offline segment. Volotovskaya also believes that in the coming years the number of players in the educational technology market will decrease and companies with low-quality products will leave the market in 2025.

Ultimate Education was founded in 2020 and the holding company includes Bang Bang Education, Fashion Factory, XYZ School, Psychodemia, MAED and Moscow Digital School. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, the revenue of Ultimate Education LLC at the end of 2023 amounted to 14.8 million rubles, the net loss was 79.1 million rubles.

According to the Smart Ranking report, the total revenue of Russia’s 100 largest edtech companies in the second quarter of 2024 increased to 32 billion rubles. At the end of the quarter, the largest segments in terms of share of total revenue were additional vocational education (DPO) and early childhood education, with 34% each.