Unacademy application start-up has raised $150 million in funding made by the SoftBank valuing the education tech firm at $1.45 billion, the firm told in a statement. The start-up which is five-year-old is a unicorn now, raised funds from existing investors which are Sequoia Capital, General Atlantic, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures and Facebook. As of now, it has raised about $350 million.
The recent infusion came hardly six months after when Unacademy got $110 million funds from the social media giant Facebook, General Atlantic and a group of other investors at a valuation of about $510 million. In 2019 June, it had managed to get $50 million from the investors.
The Bengaluru located company collaborates with a set of other start-ups in the education tech space that has been attracting considerable investor’s interest. Past week, billionaire Yuri Milner leading ST Global infused a fresh fund of $122 million in competing Byju’s which is expected to invest more capital in the company. The ed-tech app Byju’s was valued at $10.5 billion in June 2020 after it attained the backing of US-based Bond.
Recently, Eruditus raised $113 million from the investors, including Chang Zuckerberg Initiative which is from Facebook, providing it a post-money valuation of $800 million. In July, US-based Coatue led a $100-million funding round in Vedantu. The Covid-19 pandemic has made students over the country depend on online classes to complete the academic portions and prepare for their competitive exams. A survey conducted by Byju’s in August stated nearly 75 per cent of the parents surveyed want their kids to continue learning through online portals even after schools are reopened.
The Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal stated that learning from the best experts and people who have the industry experience to achieve a life goal has mostly been a blessing, which is only available to those living in the top cities in the country. At Unacademy, they are breaking that barricade and trying to help people achieve their life’s most important visions, by giving them access and platform to the best coaching from experts in the field. In a recent interview to a media, Munjal told the firm’s internal goal for the next 3 years is to raise ten times from where it is at present. The company that has a web of over 18,000 educators provides to the learning needs for more than 35 competitive exams.
