Unacademy is an Indian ed-tech company providing online learning resources. The company was founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini who have endeavored to provide students unprecedented access to education.
In February, Unacademy raised $110 million from Facebook, General Atlantic, and Sequoia bringing its valuation to $510 million. In July, it had acquired Chandigarh-based PrepLadder, a postgraduate medical entrance exam preparation platform, for $50 million, which strengthened its presence in the medical entrance categories.
In March, they were once again driven by their passion for education when they launched three initiatives in the wake of the global pandemic to make continued learning possible for students losing access to offline resources. Before the national lockdown was enacted, Unacademy opened its online platform to make over 20,000 classes available for free.
Now, the company has announced it has raised $150 million in a Series F financing round, led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, tripling its valuation to $1.45 billion. Existing investors General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Facebook, and Blume Ventures also participated in the round.
Now a unicorn, Unacademy is the second most highly valued ed-tech startup in India after Byju, which is valued at $10.5 billion.
Unacademy has recorded a 100% increase in its paid subscriber base in the last three months, with the average daily watch time across its platforms also witnessing a 100% increase. The monthly watch time minutes also touched an all-time high of over 1 billion.
“Learning from the best experts to achieve a life goal has mostly been a privilege, available only to those living in the top few cities of the country. At Unacademy, we are breaking that barrier and helping people achieve their life's most important goals by giving them access to the best coaching from experts in the field," said Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Unacademy.
The Bangalore-based company has distinguished itself in the ed-tech field by recruiting renowned teachers who attract ambitious students spanning banking, programming languages, and civil services. As classrooms close during the pandemic, demand has soared for the startup and hundreds of other virtual learning companies in India.
