India’s unicorn and second most valuable company in the education technology space Unacademy has struck another acquisition deal before ending 2020.
The Bengaluru-based EdTech firm has acquired NeoStencil, a Gurugram-based test prep platform focused on government jobs, for an undisclosed amount.
It is the company’s fifth acquisition this year. Unacademy had earlier acquired Delhi-based online exam preparation platform Kreatryx in April, coding platform CodeChef in June, Chandigarh-based medical prep platform PrepLadder in July, and recently UPSC test prep platform Coursavy in September. The company had also acquired a majority stake in Mastree – a leading K-12 learning platform – in July through a strategic investment of $5 million.
Announcing the news, Unacademy Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal took to Twitter and wrote:
Happy to announce that NeoStencil has joined the Unacademy Group.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) December 30, 2020
Commenting further on the development, the EdTech giant CEO wrote in a series of tweet, “Our mission at Unacademy is to democratize knowledge and while we have set out firmly towards that goal, we have a long way to go....NeoStencil has offers 500+ courses to millions of students. And we believe together we can create a huge impact and build products that help our learners crack their goals.... I have known Kush and Love for the past 3 years and have been fortunate to see their journey from the sidelines. It’s great to have them as a part of the Unacademy Group.”
Founded in 2014 by Kush Beejal and Love Beejal, NeoStencil provides online classes from top coaching institutes and teachers for IAS, State PCS, IES/GATE, and Judiciary to over 70 million test takers, especially from Tier 2, 3, and 4 towns. The startup claimed to have partnered with over 100 coaching institutes, served over 1.1 million students, and helped several institutes go digital during the pandemic. The live learning platform also claimed to have over 15,000 paid students on its platform.
Commenting on the partnership, Kush Beejal, Co-founder and CEO of NeoStencil, said,
“Our resolve is to ensure that every aspirant has access to the best resources regardless of whether they live in a metropolitan city. Joining the Unacademy enables us to realize this vision by being a part of a larger movement.”
Unacademy said the acquisition will strengthen its position in the test preparation space, and also increase its footprint in Tier 2 and 3 cities across the country.
Bengaluru-headquartered Unacademy was catapulted to the unicorn club in September this year following a $150 million funding round led by Japanese multinational conglomerate SoftBank Group, with participation from the company’s existing investors such as General Atlantic, Sequoia India Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Facebook, and Blume Ventures. The funding has made the company become the country’s second EdTech startup to surpass $1 billion, after BYJU’S, at $1.45 billion valuation.
In November, it raised an undisclosed amount from Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group at a valuation of $2 billion.
