India education platform Unacademy raises $440m

Additional contributions came from Mirae Asset and existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Tiger Global Management, and General Atlantic. Deepinder Goyal and Ritesh Agarwal, founders of local start-ups Zomato and Oyo, respectively, also made commitments. The round includes $20 million in secondary shares, facilitating exits for some early investors.

Unacademy’s previous round came in November 2020, when Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group invested an undisclosed amount at a $2 billion valuation – up from $1.4 billion two months earlier, when SoftBank led a $150 million round. With Bjyu’s raising $340 million at a post-money valuation of $16.5 billion in June, investor appetite for Indian online tuition platforms appears to be strong.

This comes in stark contrast to China, where deal activity ground to a halt earlier in the year following warnings of an impending regulatory crackdown. New rules issued last week threaten the commercial viability of most companies in the space, calling for shifts to non-profit status and restricting public or private market fundraising activity. The stocks of listed online education companies duly crashed.

Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Uncademy, confirmed the new funding round via a statement on LinkedIn and outlined expansion plans in an interview with The Economic Times. The company wants to broaden the scope of its business, not only offering more within the K-12 tuition space, but also entering verticals such as higher education, vocational training, and recruitment.

Established in 2015, Unacademy achieved scale by offering educational videos that help students prepare for competitive examinations and improve their ability to speak and write. The platform plays host to more than 62 million learners and over 50,000 registered educators. There were 600,000 paying subscribers as of early July and the annualized revenue run rate was $218 million.

Only $18 million of the revenue comes from K-12 classes – the rest is from test preparation – but Unacademy is keen to offer affordable, live after-school tuition in lower-tier cities. Online K-12 services have seen significant growth across India following lockdowns and school closures in response to COVID-19.

Munjal added that an IPO “now seems like a real possibility” following Zomato’s listing, and with several others in the pipeline. “Our core business is not high-burn. We will become profitable in the next 12 months and while there is no formal timeline yet, the company will seriously consider the option in the next two to three years,” he said.

Tiger Global is an investor in Unacademy, Byju’s and at least two other leading online education players in India. In June, it led a $65 million Series C for Classplus, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform used by educators to deliver live lessons and communicate with students. Tiger Global also led a $42 million Series C for live tutoring business Vedantu in 2019 and re-upped in a $100 million Series D in July 2020.

Other investors in Uncademy’s earlier rounds include Sequoia Capital India, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, Facebook, Steadview Capital, Elevation Capital, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, TracxnLabs, and WestBridge Capital Partners.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Expansion
• India
• Education
• Temasek Holdings
• Tiger Global Management
• Mirae Asset Private Equity
• Softbank
• General Atlantic