Indian edtech platform Unacademy raised US$ 440 million in a new financing round at a US$ 3.44 billion valuation on 2 August 2021. The increase in investments in the South Asian market and elsewhere could be a result of a series of regulatory crackdowns in China that wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars last month.
Investors: The funding round was led by Temasek with participation from Mirae Assets and existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund 2, General Atlantic, Tiger Global and Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal and Oyo founder Ritesh Agarwal. Unacademy has raised about US$ 860 million to date.
Purpose of the funding: The funds raised will be utilized by the startup to broaden its new categories such as upskilling, jobs and hiring.
About Unacademy
Founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini and Sachin Gupta, Unacademy provides content for major competitive examinations and subjects in the form of short lectures which can be accessed for free. It allows aspiring students to better prepare for their competitive examinations and promote self-learning.
Unacademy claims to have over 6 million monthly active users in over 10,000 cities in India. Its newest category Relevel aims to give people a path to get their dream job irrespective of their educational background, while Graphy aims to empower creators to build their online businesses to sell digital goods including NFTs.
Unacademy began its journey on YouTube and uses Google’s video platform to onboard educators. On the Unacademy app or website, students watch live classes from educators and engage in sessions to review topics in more detail. The startup has over 50,000 educators, many of whom are very popular on YouTube. The educators help Unacademy sell more subscriptions and in return get a commission.
Unacademy’s competitors include Byju’s, TAL-backed Vedantu, Tiger Global-backed Classplus and Lightspeed Venture-backed Teachmint. With continued lockdowns and closed schools, all these edtech platforms have experienced tremendous growth and continue to grow. According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, India’s online education market is estimated to generate US$ 5 billion in revenue by 2025.
Unacademy is creating a US$ 40 million fund for educators on its platform. “On Day One we already have more than 300 Educators eligible for the Grant which they will get immediately. Over the next few years we will give Grants of over $40M to our Educators,” said co-founder Gaurav Munjal.
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