A platform for educational technology Unacademy has drastically lowered its brand marketing budget as part of a cost-cutting exercise to save money in the wake of private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) firms’ investment pullbacks.Unacademy Co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal wrote an internal message to staff in which he stated that employees must learn to operate under pressure and focus on reaching profitability. He also stated that the funding winter has arrived, and that new financing will be difficult to come by for at least the next 12 to 18 months.
“Globally, tech equities are collapsing as a result of tighter monetary policy and rising interest rates. We’re looking at a period when money will be scarce for at least 12 to 18 months. Some estimate that this would persist for 24 months “’ I indicated in the communication,’ he said.
Munjal has outlined the company’s critical stages toward profitability. Apart from cutting back on brand marketing, Unacademy will concentrate on organic growth channels.
He also added that Unacademy must turn a profit in the next three months in every test-prep area it operates. Businesses like Relevel and Graphy, who are in the blitz-scaling mode, must become extremely sensitive to Burn and dramatically reduce it, he noted.
He indicated that all non-revenue-related incentives for instructors have been eliminated or are being phased down. Munjal also advised employees to only travel when necessary. Meetings that save money on travel and can be held on Zoom, he believes, should be held on Zoom.Unacademy, according to Munjal, has never been resource constrained because it constantly raises more money than is required. This, he claimed, allowed them to explore and build the Platform without fear of running out of money.
“It also enabled us to create the correct product and monetize it properly. Because we intended to be a product firm, we said no to selling Courses on a Pen Drive and developing a Field Salesforce. And scale in the same way. We would not have been able to accomplish this if we did not have the necessary funds “he explained.He also mentioned that the platform’s ability to see true Product Led Growth was due to monetization via the Subscription Product. “We thrived in an atmosphere with plenty of resources and capital.
There were occasions in 2018-19 when raising funds proved challenging, but the company remained unaffected because, as usual, we had a 30-month runway. We then raised our Series D Round after 18 rejections.”According to reports in the media, the corporation has laid off roughly 1,000 people, including both permanent and contract workers.
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