EdTech unicorn Unacademy has acquired a majority stake in TapChief, a professional networking and future-of-work platform.
According to a press statement, the transaction values TapChief at ₹100 crore. As per the deal, Bengaluru-based Unacademy will pick a majority stake in TapChief, providing an exit to all existing investors in the company. TapChief had raised a total of about $2.2 million from investors like Blume Ventures, PayTm, 500 Startups, and angel investors like Cred founder Kunal Shah, Udhyam founder Mekin Maheshwari, and Slideshare founder Amit Ranjan.
Commenting on the latest development, Gaurav Munjal, Co-founder and CEO, Unacademy Group, said in a press statement,
“Our endeavour at Unacademy has always been to democratize education and make learning accessible and affordable for everyone. TapChief shares a similar ethos in a different space, as evident from the open community of professionals and learners they’ve created. Shashank and his team have delivered promising results in a short span of time and I am delighted to welcome the TapChief team to the Unacademy Group.”
Gaurav also took to Twitter and wrote in a series of tweet:
Unacademy started by revelling the playing field for students who can’t travel to Kota, Delhi and other cities by getting them access to these educators and highest quality content for a fraction of the cost.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) February 16, 2021
And now it’s time for us to help students get their dream jobs by getting them the best education and access to top companies which they are not getting.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) February 16, 2021
This is the reason we are acquiring @tapchief.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) February 16, 2021
Founded in 2016 by Shashank Murali , Binay Krishna, and Arjun Krishna, TapChief provides a suite of solutions to help professionals interact and learn from experts, work with businesses from across the world, and aggregate their personal brand online.
TapChief claims to have more than 150,000 registered professionals, who use the platform to collaborate with a host of experts from their respective fields and take up short-term professional projects, and over 150 enterprise customers across education, FMCG, e-commerce, enterprise SaaS, upskilling, among others.
Speaking about the company, Shashank Murali, Co-founder and CEO, TapChief, said,
“TapChief’s mission has been to empower the modern Indian professional with access to a wide array of opportunities that enhances their career and growth. Starting from college as undergraduate students to becoming a part of one of India’s best-known unicorns has been a dream comes true for a young team like ours. We are excited to learn from the Unacademy team and carry forward our mission at a greater scale and fervor as part of the Unacademy Group.”
The TapChief’s co-founder also took to Twitter and posted:
Its a momentous day for @tapchief as we embark on a new journey as part of the @unacademy Group.
They say, “It takes a village to raise a child” & there have been so many without whom we wouldn’t be here.
Today is better than any other to share a bit about them? https://t.co/bjZoWzcr3b
— Shashank Murali (@shankmurali) February 16, 2021
Meanwhile, TapChief is Unacademy’s seventh acquisition in the past 12 months. The EdTech major had earlier acquired Delhi-based online exam preparation platform Kreatryx in April last year, CodeChef in June, Chandigarh-based medical prep platform PrepLadder in July, UPSC test prep platform Coursavy in September, and recently NeoStencil in December. The company had also acquired a majority stake in Mastree – a K-12 learning platform – in July through a strategic investment of $5 million.
