Unacademy Sold to UpGrad for $206M, About 94% Less Than Peak
Unacademy Sold to UpGrad for $206M, About 94% Less Than Peak
Key Highlights
- Unacademy, once one of India’s most valuable edtech startups, has been acquired The all-stock deal values Unacademy at ₹19.55 billion (about $206 million), upGrad’s co-founder and chairperson Ronnie Screwvala told TechCrunch.
- Unacademy shareholders are receiving upGrad shares as part of the transaction, while angel investors were cashed out at closing, Screwvala said.
- On Monday, Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said in a post on X that the deal had closed, nearly six months after the transaction was first announced in March.
India's edtech giant Unacademy has been acquired in an all-stock deal valued at ₹19.55 billion (approximately $206 million), according to Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairperson of upGrad.
Unacademy shareholders are set to receive upGrad shares as part of the transaction, while angel investors have been cashed out, Screwvala revealed.
Acquisition comes nearly six months
The acquisition comes nearly six months after the deal was first announced in March. Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal confirmed the closure on Monday, stating that the startup had raised at its peak but sold at a fraction of that value.
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"We raised at a peak, but sold at a fraction of that," Munjal wrote on X. "I'm not going to dress these facts up."
Despite having approximately ₹9 billion (around $94.8 million) in the bank and annual revenue of roughly ₹4 billion (approximately $42.13 million), Unacademy's leadership had come to believe that expanding into more areas of education was necessary for scale or an eventual public listing.
Joining upGrad, which has built a larger presence in offline education, offered one route to achieving this goal. The acquisition also includes Airlearn, Unacademy's language-learning app, which will remain under upGrad for now.
"To see a product coming out of India gaining traction globally is a great example of what is possible when the thinking, product and ambition are not limited to India," Screwvala wrote on X. "India to the world is a very real opportunity, and Airlearn is already showing us a glimpse of it."
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The two-year-old online platform serves 10 million users across over 150 countries, Unacademy said. The edtech group has amassed over 10 billion views for its free education videos on YouTube.
Unacademy's brand will be retained, and the deal covers the entire group, including PrepLadder and Graphy. Munjal will continue as CEO and lead the business as before, with a focus on online operations and Airlearn.
No layoffs are planned, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Unacademy Group has approximately 1,000 employees.
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Tech journalist and AI enthusiast who enjoys keeping up with the latest in hardware, processors, emerging AI tools, and software. I like digging into new technology, understanding how things actually work, and following the developments that could shape the way we use technology in the future.
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