Unacademy, an Indian edtech unicorn and one of the leading online learning platforms has raised $440 million in a fresh round of funding led by Singapore headquartered Temasek, at a valuation of $3.44 billion.
The Series H funding round also witnessed participation from Mirae Asset, General Altlantic, Tiger Global and Softbank Vision Fund.
The new round will increase the valuation of the startup to $3.44 billion, an increase of 70 percent from $2 billion in December last year.
Unacademy has also brought on board Aroa Ventures, Oyo Hotels & Homes founder Ritesh Agarwal’s family office, as well as Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and chief executive officer of Zomato.
Founded in 2015 by computer science graduate Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini, Unacademy has a growing network of more than 50,000 registered educators and over 62 million learners, in 14 Indian languages across 5,000 cities.
Announcing the new investments, Founder and CEO of Unacademy Gaurav Munjal wrote,
“There are three major products that we will build and scale (or continue scaling), Unacademy: helping people crack life-changing exams, Relevel: giving people a path to get their dream job irrespective of their educational background, Graphy: empowering creators to build their online businesses to sell digital goods including NFTs.”
Unacademy plans to use the funding to scale its new lines of business as it looks to double down and scale its presence in the upskilling and job search markets.
The latest investment comes within a year of the startup raising an undisclosed amount in November 2020, which valued the company at $2 million. The platform had raised $150 million in September 2020, at a valuation of $1.45 billion, which marked its entry into India’s coveted unicorn club.
The Bengaluru-based startup also announced the launch of Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs) for all educators on its platform last week. Through the initiative, Unacademy educators will be eligible for fully vested stock grants on completion of three, four and five years with Unacademy respectively.
The online learning giant is also expected to use the current fundraise to make newer acquisitions in the education space.
Late last month, Unacademy acquired Rheo TV, a platform that helps professional game streamers Livestream their gameplays and monetize those feeds.
In February this year, the edtech platform acquired TapChief, professional networking and “future-of-work” platform, at a valuation of Rs 100 crore.
Unacademy has also made several acquisitions, including exam-prep firms WifiStudy, Coursavy & Neostencil, Mastree, which enhances kids’ communication skills, and Code Chef, a platform teaching coding to kids.
