Valued at $3.25B after a $650M fundraise, Good Unicorn Emeritus/Eruditus is on a mission to build a world where MIT and Harvard-level educations are accessible to all.
What’s a Good Unicorn? Of 835 Unicorns from 40+ countries, I’ve so far only identified 48 potential Good Unicorns in my research. Emeritus is one of them. Good Unicorns are in service of at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal. Emeritus is in service of Goal 4: “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
This was a thought-provoking, soul-searching conversation with Ashwin Damera, founder of Emeritus/Eruditus on How To Build A Good Unicorn (def: a startup valued at $1B+ that is in an undeniable force for good for our people & planet), filled with incredible nuggets of insight and wisdom. Let’s dive straight in.
Diana Tsai: So as you know, I specifically research and study Good Unicorns, not ordinary ones, but the ones that are actually changing the world for the better. And so I’d love for you to just start us off with just a little snapshot of Emeritus – how is the company really serving our people and our planet?
Ashwin Damera: If there’s one thing that I believe can change the future of humanity, it’s education. I grew up in Mumbai, and you see islands of prosperity and oceans of poverty. What’s the difference? Education. The person in the slum doesn’t have the money to go to a school. It’s not about fundamental ability. They have that. It’s the opportunity to be educated. That’s the very big picture of why we care about education.
At Emeritus, our mission is to make high quality education accessible and affordable. In a country like India for example, there are 14 million students in higher education, but that’s only 27% of high school students that graduate. In the United States, that ratio is 80% (of high school students go onto higher education). So if India was to get to 80%, you would have to create 100 million new seats in universities. You cannot do that in […]
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