- Edtech unicorn Unacademy said it has raised funds from US-based Tiger Global Management & Dragoneer Investment Group at a valuation of $2 bn.
Two more flagship investors have been added to its cap table by Unacademy, an online learning platform in India. The start-up based in Bangalore, which focuses on K-12 online education, said it raised new funds from Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group on Wednesday.
The funding round, ranging in size from $75 million to $100 million (according to a person familiar with the matter; the amount has not been disclosed by Unacademy), priced the four-and-a-half-year-old company at $2 billion, up from around $500 million in February this year when Facebook joined its list of supporters and $1.45 billion in September when SoftBank led the round.
Our goal from Day One has been to democratize and make education more available and affordable. We have continuously created the most popular brands that provide everyone with a high-quality education. Today, I am pleased to welcome Tiger Global and Dragoneer as our travel partners.
Gaurav Munjal, co-founder, and chief executive of Unacademy, said in a statement that they are both marquee global investors with a history of partnering with innovative companies that have an impact on people’s lives.
As well as those taking graduate-level classes, Unacademy helps students prepare for competitive tests to get into college. Students watch live lessons from educators on its app and later participate in sessions to discuss subjects in more depth. In recent months, the start-up has conducted many online interviews on a variety of topics with high-profile individuals, such as Indian politician Shashi Tharoor, which has broadened its attractiveness beyond its student base.
The platform has drawn over 47,000 educators who teach more than 14 languages to students in 5,000 cities in India. Every month, over 150,000 live classes are conducted on the platform and the cumulative watch time across platforms is more than 2 billion minutes per month, the start-up said.
“Because of its sheer accessibility, the potential to better lives through online education is immense. To establish a leading forum that brings education to the farthest corners of India, the Unacademy team has rapidly innovated. In a tweet, Scott Shleifer, partner at Tiger Global, said that we are very excited to partner with Unacademy and look forward to seeing it grow further.
In recent months, scores of education start-ups in India have recorded skyrocketing growth as schools remain closed across the nation in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The education category is an outlier, even though most Indians prefer not to pay for online services, just ask Google and Facebook, both of which count India as their largest consumer market but make little in the region. In hopes of paving the way for a better future, Indian families continue to invest heavily in their children’s education.
