Tiger, Dragoneer back India's Unacademy at $2b valuation
Indian online education business Unacademy has received funding from Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group at a valuation of $2 billion, up from $1.4 billion in its previous round just two months ago.
Gaurav Munjal confirmed the development in a social media post, saying he was happy to be supported by these investors as Unacademy looks to “build iconic products that democratize education and make it more accessible and affordable.” The size of the investment was not disclosed, but Techcrunch reported it was $75-100 million.
In late September, SoftBank led a $150 million round through its second Vision Fund. It was joined by General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital India, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, and Facebook, all of which participated in a $110 million round in February. The valuation for that round was said to be $500 million. Unacademy’s other backers include Steadview Capital, SAIF Partners, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, TracxnLabs, and WestBridge Capital Partners.
Established in 2015, the company offers free educational videos that help students prepare for competitive examinations and improve their ability to speak and write. It aims to offer more flexibility than traditional classrooms and incorporates techniques such as storytelling and mnemonics, a memorization methodology.
Unacademy claims to be the largest learning platform in India with more than 47,000 educators delivering classes in 14 Indian languages to 40 million students across 5,000 cities. It offers over 150,000 live classes each month. Earlier this year, the company acquired majority stakes in two industry peers, Mastree and PrepLadder.
Indian education technology is booming as existing digitization drivers such as poor infrastructure in rural areas are exacerbated by COVID-19. Recent activity in this space includes a $24 million investment in online tutoring service Vedantu that extended a prior $42 million Series C round. Meanwhile, Byju’s achieved a valuation of $11 billion in September following a $500 million investment led by Silver Lake.
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