The bengaluru-based education technology company, Unacademy has recently concluded its new secondary transaction with multiple investors onboard, raising an amount of USD 50 million. This latest transaction included participation from several investors including New York-based investment firm, Tiger Global Management, California-based Dragoneer Investment Group, global growth equity firm, General Atlantic and Hong Kong-based alternative asset management firm, Steadview Capital.
These existing investors of the edtech company have acquired shares worth USD 50 million from the concluded secondary transaction. Unacademy has been constantly competing with other market players such as Byju’s, Toppr among many others.
According to the company profile on CrunchBase, this secondary transaction comes after November 25, 2020, when Unacademy was backed by existing investors Dragoneer Investment Group and Tiger Global Management at USD 2 billion valuation in concluding Venture Round.
Having said that, the education technology sector in India has been on the booming side since the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdowns have been implied. The education sector among many other markets has been hit the hardest where education for children has been greatly compromised. Unacademy leveraged the situation to capitalise its business by providing students with a platform to learn and educate themselves. Founded back in 2015, the start-up entered the prestigious Unicorn Club with USD 1.45 billion valuation in September last year in a round led by SoftBank with funding of USD 150 million and since then, the company is on an acquisition spree.
As mentioned in a report by Financial Express, Unacademy has successfully acquired over five edtech companies in the severity of COVID-19 pandemic. These acquisitions have made a major advancement in the overall education technology ecosystem in the country which has maximised the start-up’s userbase at a much lower acquisition cost.
Following the company’s last year timeline, it first acquired Kreatyrx in March, then CodeChef in June, PrepLadder in the month of July, followed by Coursavy in September and then finally it bought NeoStencil in December 2020.
The start-up has been constantly growing since the past year and with the ever-increasing potential of the edtech ecosystem in India, the market is turning heads of global investors who are generously investing in such start-ups.
Not just start-ups, most recently, an experienced and established multinational e-commerce company, Amazon has also forayed into the Indian edtech market through Amazon India.
Yes! Amazon India has recently launched its Amazon Academy that provides an IIT JEE test preparation platform to students or aspiring engineers of class 11th and 12th. Amazon is a new entrant in the market that is claiming to offer free test preparation study material along with over 15,000 mock test questions for complete preparation.
Unacademy also offers IIT JEE test preparation courses along with test analysis and personal coaching, as mentioned on the company’s official website.
