Unacademy raises fresh funds at $2 bn valuation

Edtech unicorn Unacademy Wednesday stated it has raised funds from US-based Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group at a valuation of $2 billion.

The firm didn’t disclose the funding quantity, however an individual accustomed to the matter stated it was $60-80 million.

The firm had final raised $150 million in September in a funding spherical led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, trebling its valuation to $1.45 billion in a span of six months, making it the second-most valued edtech startup after bigger rival Byju’s. Previously in February, it had raised $110 million from Facebook Inc., General Atlantic and Sequoia at a valuation of $510 million.

The pandemic has accelerated the tempo of fund-raising and progress of edtech startups, as instructional establishments and offline lessons have been disrupted and studying moved on-line. Both world and home traders proceed to guess large on these corporations, fuelling valuations.

“Our mission from Day One has been to democratise education and make it more affordable and accessible. We have consistently built the most iconic products that deliver high quality education to everyone. Today, I’m delighted to welcome Tiger Global and Dragoneer as our partners in the journey. They are both marquee global investors with a history of partnering with innovative companies that are making an impact on people’s lives,” Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO, Unacademy stated in a press release.

Byju’s can also be near elevating $200 million in a contemporary funding spherical from US funding companies BlackRock and T. Rowe Price at a valuation of $12 billion, Mint reported earlier this week.

Founded 5 years in the past by Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh, Unacademy presents test preparation lessons from civil service and banking exams to programming languages. It has over 47,000 educators educating in over 14 Indian languages, and customers throughout 5,000 cities.

Over 150,000 reside lessons are carried out on the platform every month and the month-to-month collective watch time is over 2 billion minutes.

Munjal had earlier stated that within the July-September interval, the startup had recorded a 100% improve in its paid subscriber base, with the typical day by day watch time throughout Unacademy platforms additionally witnessing a 100% improve.

“The opportunity to improve lives through online education is enormous because of its sheer accessibility. The Unacademy team has innovated rapidly to build a leading platform that is taking education to the farthest corners of India. We are very excited to partner with Unacademy and look forward to seeing it scale further,” stated Scott Shleifer, companion at Tiger Global.

In March, Unacademy acquired Kreatryx (a web-based preparation platform for GATE and the Engineering Services Exam). In July, it had acquired Mastree, a number one Okay12 studying platform.and Chandigarh-based PrepLadder, a postgraduate medical entrance examination preparation platform, for $50 million, which can strengthen its presence within the medical entrance classes.

“I want to make Unacademy the largest consumer internet company out of India.. that will be an ed tech and not e-commerce,” Munjal had instructed Mint in September.