Success Story of Unacademy: A Learning Platform Designed for Competitive Examinations

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations.

Classroom learning is seen as a hindrance to discovering new things by many. Besides, a lot of students also go unnoticed this way and eventually fail to explore the world around them with the lack of attention and opportunity they get in a physical class. Furthermore, when it comes to competitive examinations, many students in remote places are even unaware of the best teachers and updated methods to crack these exams. Unacademy unscrambles these problems with its online learning platform with the top educators in the country. The company offers courses and lectures for several competitive examinations such as CAT, JEE, NEET, CLAT, UPSC CSE/IAS, IBPS/SBI, RRB, and video classes on various subjects, thus empowering the students to excel in this competitive world.

Unacademy is an Edtech company established in 2015. The company had its beginnings as a YouTube channel created by Gaurav Munjal and started by Dheeraj Meena. Later on, in 2015, the company was registered in Bengaluru as an education company. The company entered the Unicorn club in September 2020 after it raised $150 million from Softbank and other existing investors.

Here's StartupTalky bringing you all that you want to know about Unacademy, including the Latest News, Startup Story, Founders and Team, History, Name, Tagline, Logo, Mission, Vision, Business Model, Growth and Revenue, Funding and Investors, Acquisitions, Competitors, and more.

Unacademy Company Details

About Unacademy
Unacademy - Industry
Unacademy - Founders and Team
Unacademy - Name, Tagline, and Logo
Unacademy - Vision and Mission
Unacademy - Educators
Unacademy - Growth and Revenue
Unacademy - Financials
Unacademy - Partnerships
Unacademy - Campaigns
Unacademy - Funding and Investors
Unacademy - Shareholding
Unacademy - Acquisitions
Unacademy - ESOPs
Unacademy - Business and Revenue Model
Unacademy - Challenges
Unacademy - Investment
Unacademy - Competitors
Unacademy - Future Plans

About Unacademy

Unacademy is an online platform that makes both learning and teaching easy with its educational videos and lectures. Initially, it was founded in the year 2010 with videos streaming on YouTube, but it officially launched in the year 2015.

The company has achieved spectacular growth with more than 10K educators and over 13 Million users since it was founded. Unacademy Co-founder and CTO Hemesh Singh has proudly posted that it has crossed 750,000 active paid subscribers. The active subscribers have crossed the 800K, as of April 28, 2022, which was shared again by Gaurav Munjal.

It has earlier posted of attaining the milestone of 650,000 active subscribers on its platform, as per Unacademy COO Vivek Sinha's tweet dated September 9, 2021.

Numerous platforms of Unacademy including Unacademy Plus, and other properties of the company like Chamomile Tea with Toppers, Wifistudy, The Solutionists, Unacademy JEE, and Unacademy Studios, with which it acquired nearly 110 million views every month, makes it the largest distributor of educational content. The learning app is compatible with Android, iOS, and Windows and thus can be easily accessed by all.

Unacademy Products

Unacademy company has launched various products:

Unacademy products include:

• Learner App
• Educator App
• Parent App

Unacademy offers both live and recorded classes from India's best educators via:

• Structured Syllabus
• Daily Live Classes
• Doubt-clearing sessions
• Tests and Practice Opportunities

Some of the product launches of the Year 2023 are:

Cohesive AI

Unacademy launched an AI content editor in April 2023 that makes it simple for users to "create, refine, edit, and publish" their work.

Unacademy Store

opened its first Unacademy store in Odisha's Bhubaneswar on May 17, 2023. In accordance with the platform's goal of democratizing access to high-quality education, Unacademy Stores are physical locations where learners may peruse brand offerings and get assistance from knowledgeable staff.

Unacademy UNSAT

The third iteration of the Unacademy National Scholarship Admission Test (UNSAT), the largest scholarship test supporting the expanding aspirations of IIT JEE and NEET UG Learners, was announced by Unacademy, on September 29, 2023.

Unacademy - Industry

The market for kindergarten to 12th grade was valued at $1.16 billion whereas the skill development market was estimated to be worth less than $500 million. As a whole, the edtech market in India was worth $2.8 billion in 2020. However, this is set to drastically change by 2025, when the market of Edtech is estimated to be valued at $10.4 billion.

Unacademy - Founders and Team

Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Dr. Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh. Though it was started under the same name by Gaurav Munjal and Dheeraj Meena as an educational channel on YouTube in 2010, the company was officially registered as an education company, Unacademy in 2015 in Bengaluru.

Gaurav Munjal

Gaurav Munjal, the CEO of Unacademy, sold his first company FlatChat, to CommonFloor in 2014, and is currently developing Unacademy. A St. Xavier's Jaipur student, Munjal has a Btech in Computer Engineering from NMIMS, Mumbai. After a brief internship at Directi, Munjal founded Unacademy, as a Youtube channel providing easy, study-related videos for the students. However, he left the same and joined Directi as a Software Developer, where he remained for a little more than a year before founding FlatChat. He served as the FlatChat Founder and CEO but after the same had been acquired by CommonFloor. Munjal started revamping Unacademy from scratch and developed it into the company we see now.

Gaurav Munjal Story: Education | Investments | Controversy

Discover the journey of Guarav Munjal who has transformed the Indian edtech landscape. A visionary entrepreneur known for making quality education accessible to millions through innovative online learning solutions.

StartupTalkyPratiksha Bajikar

Dr. Roman Saini

Roman Saini, who is a doctor from AIIMS, cleared the Civil Service Exam (IAS) in 2013. He quit his administrative roles and is now the Chief Educator and the Co-founder of Unacademy.

Hemesh Singh

Hemesh Singh, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Co-founder of Unacademy resigned in June 2024 after nearly a decade with the company and transitioned into an advisory role. Before Unacademy, he also served as the CTO of FlatChat.

Karan Shroff, who served as the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Unacademy and was promoted to Partner in September 2021, resigned from the SoftBank-backed edtech unicorn. He announced his resignation through a LinkedIn post in September 2022.

In August 2023, the company elevated Sumit Jain to co-founder. Jain currently leads the Graphy division of Unacademy.

The company yields a valuation of $3.44 Billion as of 2022, building a strong community of technology-driven self-learners.

Unacademy - Name, Tagline, and Logo

The name Unacademy [Un (Not) - Academy] states that this learning platform differs from the conventional methods of education, unlike an institution or academy which is accessible to everyone. “India’s largest learning platform” is the tagline of the company.

Unacademy - Vision and Mission

Unacademy’s vision is to build numerous courses in multiple languages for students all over the world. Expanding its educators along with the students, Unacademy aims to collaborate with the brightest minds and empower India’s youth population which accounts for 19% of the world’s youth, to bring oneself into this contemporary world. 70% of its learners come from Tier 3 cities, where there is a lack of top educators, thus, the startup focuses on enlarging its teachers, and languages, and adding more exams to the existing mixture.

“By leveraging technology and high-quality educators, we aim to move closer to our mission of democratising education at all levels, starting with test prep,”

“We are seeing unprecedented growth and engagement from learners in smaller towns and cities, and are also very humbled to see that top-quality educators are choosing Unacademy as their primary platform to reach out to students.”, says Gaurav Munjal, CEO of Unacademy.

Unacademy - Educators

Unacademy imposes life lessons and motivational talks with top educators in its exclusive “Legends on Unacademy” initiative. The first edition included famous cricketers Brian Lara, Brett Lee, and Jonty Rhodes as educators, talking about their challenges and achievements. The second edition of “Legends on Unacademy” involved Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, India’s first woman IPS officer Kiran Bedi, and the star couple Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma. Apart from this, the educators for all sectors are highly accomplished with prior proficiency and in-depth erudition.

“These interactive classes will not only equip our learners with academic knowledge, but also empower them with extraordinary life skills, and help them hone their ability to overcome various challenges”, said Karan Shroff, Ex- Vice President, Marketing at Unacademy.

Celebrity educators would join in soon with Unacademy, who will teach the students extracurricular courses via "Unacademy Icons", which was all set to be launched in 2022. Though this new venture sounds almost like FrontRow, Celebrity School, Artium Academy, and Mento, at first impression, the working model is still not clear and will only be clear after the official confirmation from the company.

Unacademy - Growth and Revenue

Unacademy has emerged as one of the largest companies in the Edtech space in 2021, which has successfully raised quite a sum via the funding rounds and has acquired around 12 companies including CodeChef, Coursavy, and more. The company is currently hailed as the second most valued ed-tech startup.

Unacademy states that the greatest success of them relies on the students who crack the toughest of examinations. Catering to 32+ competitive exams as of now, the company focuses on its growth by including more tests and exams, to append subscribers. This Edtech startup has raised $110 Million from General Atlantic and Facebook and received a post-money valuation of $510 Million, which was an added boost for the company that has already seen big names, such as Sequoia Capital India, Steadview Capital at the start of its career. The company has also received funds from SoftBank Vision Fund, Dragoneer Investment Group, Tiger Global Management, and Temasek Holdings in the last couple of years.

“We started to monetise around a year ago, and in the first month, we made around Rs 2 crore in revenue, and last month we did around Rs 18 crore. So, we’ve grown 9X in 12 months and we plan to continue growing from here,” said Gaurav Munjal.

Unacademy has signed former skipper of the Indian cricket team, MS Dhoni, and the contract is for 2 years, as the report goes.

Unacademy has achieved numerous growth milestones throughout the years. Here are some of the prominent growth highlights of Unacademy:

• Unacademy offers preparation for over 60 categories of exams.
• It has over 5,00,000 registered educators on its platform.
• The company boasts of having 1 million+ video lessons.
• The Edtech unicorn has 315+ million total views for its YouTube videos.
• Unacademy has opened its first physical store in New Delhi, as per reports dated March 12, 2022, and will open similar stores in Kota, Jaipur, and Lucknow.

Unacademy - Financials

Unacademy has shown a fluctuating financial performance over the last few years, with revenue growth but persistent losses. Here’s a breakdown of its key financials from FY24 to FY20.

Unacademy’s revenue declined by 5.3% in FY24 (INR 988.5 crore) compared to FY23 (INR 1,044.4 Cr). However, its losses significantly reduced from INR 1,678.1 crore in FY23 to INR 631.1 crore in FY24, indicating cost-cutting measures.

Unacademy Revenue:

Unacademy’s revenue from operations declined in FY24, but overall revenue was supported by an increase in other income.

Revenue from operations dropped by 7.4% in FY24, from INR 907 crore to INR 839.8 crore, while other income grew by 8.2% from INR 137.4 crore to INR 148.7 crore.

Unacademy Profit/Loss:

Unacademy significantly reduced its losses in FY24, showing improved financial management.

Unacademy’s losses decreased by 62%, from INR 1,678.1 crore in FY23 to INR 631.1 crore in FY24, mainly due to cost-cutting.

Unacademy Expenses:

Expenses significantly decreased in FY24, primarily due to a sharp reduction in employee benefits and other costs.

Unacademy reduced its total expenses by 40.5%, from INR 2,734.2 crore in FY23 to INR 1,626.9 crore in FY24, mainly by cutting employee costs and other operational expenses.

Quick Summary:

• Revenue dropped by 5.3%, but other income increased, reducing the overall impact.
• Losses were reduced significantly by 62%, showing financial improvement.
• Expenses decreased by 40.5%, mainly due to lower employee benefits and other cost optimizations.
• Unacademy is moving toward financial stability, cutting costs, and reducing losses, but revenue decline remains a concern.

EBITDA

EBITDA margin increased slightly from -320.57% in FY21 to -324.46% in FY22 due to an increase in operating losses. From Rs 5.10 in FY21 to Rs 5.15 in FY22, the Expense/Rs of Op income stayed relatively unchanged, demonstrating consistent cost control actions. On the other hand, the Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) decreased marginally from -80.38% in FY21 to -81.38% in FY22, indicating a diminished capacity to provide returns on capital that has been invested.

Unacademy - Partnerships

Unacademy has seen numerous successful partnerships throughout time. Some of the prominent ones are as follows:

• Unacademy has signed an MoU with the Backward Classes Welfare Department (BCWD) of the Govt. of Telangana, which will identify and empower meritorious students from the state and provide them with scholarships. As per the collaboration, Unacademy is ready to conduct a series of aptitude tests for the meritorious students of Telangana in 3 phases, which will cater to the college entrance and government job exams. Around 4,500 aspirants will receive the benefits of the scholarship program, which is the Unacademy Plus subscription, as announced by Unacademy on April 6, 2022. The ed-tech unicorn had already signed an MoU for a similar scholarship program with the Odisha Govt. towards the end of 2021.
• The Gaurav Munjal-led ed-tech company has been declared the official partner of IPL for 3 seasons of the cricketing carnival, as reported in August 2020.
• Unacademy has partnered with TapChief on January 24, 2017, to help the students land their first jobs.
• The company partnershiped with The Viral Fever one of the most well-known digital content producers in India, for the fascinating new web series "Sandeep Bhaiya." on July 1, 2023.

Unacademy - Campaigns

Unacademy launched its "Meri Pehli Academy" campaign on May 5, 2022, which celebrates womanhood prior to Mother's Day.

Unacademy partnered with MS Dhoni on August 11, 2021, and has unveiled an 85-second brand film featuring its brand ambassador, the former Indian cricket team skipper.

Unacademy has earlier partnered with the Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar. The Gaurav Munjal-led came out with an advertising campaign featuring the master blaster, his failures, and his eventual success on March 2, 2021.

Unacademy is well-known for its IPL campaigns, which the company features amidst the commentary box talks. Campaigns like "Mauke pe Chauka", "Kya Hum Live Hai", "What a Wonderful Advert" and more.

It previously launched the "Let's Crack it" campaign in November 2019, which was its first ATL campaign.

The Growth Of Startup Ecosystem In India

The Indian startup ecosystem has really taken off and come into focus on its own—driven by factors such as massive funding, etc. Read this article to know more.

StartupTalkyPV Vyshnavi

Unacademy - Funding and Investors

Unacademy is valued at $3.44 billion as of 2022, after the fundraising round, Series H, led by Temasek, Softbank, Tiger Global, and others on August 1, 2021, where the company has raised $440 million.

Initially, Unacademy raised a seed funding of $500K from Blume Ventures in May 2016. The latest funding was raised on August 1, 2021.

“We were thrilled with how rapidly Gaurav (Munjal) and the team converted some of our collective product brainstorming sessions into an amazing live-streaming product and a subscription business for the test prep market,” said Shailendra Singh, Managing Director of Sequoia Capital.

The total funding amount raised by Unacademy is $838.5 Million over 12 funding rounds.

Unacademy raised some iconic rounds from the biggies in the investment and corporate world including General Atlantic, Facebook, Sequoia Capital, Flipkart, Softbank, Nexus, Blume, Tiger Global, Dragoneer, Temasek, and more. One such round came in February 2020, when funding close to $110 mn came from the likes of General Atlantic, Facebook, Flipkart, and others. Though the money infused by Facebook was undisclosed, the social media giant reportedly poured in around $20 mn in the round. The same round elicited some amazing responses both from Unacademy and Facebook.

"We thank General Atlantic and Facebook who have joined us in this journey and our existing investors who continue to be a part of the journey by supporting us. Our goal is to democratise education and become not just the largest educational organisation but the largest consumer Internet story out of India," Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO, Unacademy, said in a statement.

"Facebook is an ally for India's economic growth and social development, and we are excited about India and its rapidly rising Internet ecosystem," said Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India.

List of Top Edtech Startups in India | Education Startups in India

Although people are underestimating the value of education [https://startuptalky.com/tag/education/]these days because of the “drop out” tag, we all know how important education is. People need to upgrade their skills instead of just getting a degree. Schools & colleges are important but equally imp…

StartupTalkyAshwini

Unacademy - Shareholding

Unacademy's shareholding pattern as of March 2024, sourced from Tracxn:

Unacademy - Acquisitions

Facebook-based Unacademy has acquired 12 startups to date to strengthen its position in the Edtech Sector. The last of the acquisitions was Swiflearn, which was acquired by Unacademy on November 3, 2021. The company previously acquired the Edtech Saas platform Spayee, which was acquired by Unacademy-backed Graphy on October 11, 2021.

Unacademy has been in talks since October 18, 2021, to acquire Swiflearn, a Gurugram-based full-stack online platform for academic courses that aims to provide a personalized learning experience for students. Founded by Abhinav Agarwal and Anand Bakode, Swiflearn currently focuses on the K-10 segment and extends free and subscription-based classes for students. The acquisition deal was then in its latter stages and was estimated to be worth around $15-20 million. Finally, the acquisition happened on 3rd November and is in line with the company's strategies to cement its position in the K-12 category. However, the deal amount is still undisclosed. The acquisition of CodeChef was one of the major acquisitions of Unacademy, which delighted both Gaurav Munjal and Bhavin Turakhia.

The list of Acquisitions is as follows:

Unacademy - ESOPs

Unacademy has announced the expansion of its ESOP pool by 19.8%. The Unacademy ESOP pool will now consist of 286 mn options from the earlier announced 238.7 mn options. As per reports dated July 9, 2022, each option of Unacademy is priced at Rs 109, meaning that the total size of the ESOP pool would be worth around Rs 3,118 crore ($393 mn) as of November 2022.

The edtech giant had earlier expanded its ESOP size from 99K to 238 mn, which is a 2401X jump on April 20, 2022.

Unacademy had already announced its ESOP buyback plan on September 4, 2021, the company further reassured that it would be the company's largest employee stock ownership plan for the team members and educators of the platform.

Co-founder Roman Saini mentioned that this ESOP buyback will be the third and largest by the online learning platform. Furthermore, he also thanked the employees of Unacademy because they believed in the company's “vision of democratizing education”. He also added that Unacademy is also announcing the Teacher Stock Options (TSOPs) for its educators, who will be eligible for fully vested Stock Grants after they complete 3, 4, and 5 years with Unacademy.

Munjal further disclosed that the company currently has 50,000+ registered educators as of August 2023, who are eligible for the grant, which they will get immediately.

"We are who we are because of our Educators and we want our Educators to grow and create wealth as Unacademy grows!” added Munjal.

Unacademy - Business and Revenue Model

Unacademy operates on B2B and B2C business models, where the main income of the company lies in the paid memberships that it offers!

Unacademy's basic revenue model is of a Freemium type. Here the company offers a range of services for free, which the audiences can continue. However, if they want more high-quality content, then they need to pay a small fee for the same.

Unacademy Plus - Unacademy offers numerous classes along with pre-recorded video lectures furnished with ample information for free for all the students. However, the company also offers paid live classes to help the student clear their doubts with one-on-one doubt clearance sessions and proper lectures. This can be availed through a premium subscription called 'Unacademy Plus.' The Unacademy Plus subscription was launched at Rs 299 to celebrate the Unacademy Learning Festival. This offer was valid from April 23 to April 30, 2022, for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Undergraduate (NEET-UG), and students from Class 8 to 12.

Relevel - Unacademy has launched another platform called Relevel in May 2021. This new platform is designed to help job seekers find their jobs within 15 days of application. Relevel claims to have more than 2.35 lakh users and boasts of a 100% placement rate, as of October 1, 2021. The people who have secured jobs are mostly from Tier II and Tier III cities in the country. Besides, the experienced job seekers claimed to have attained up to a 150% salary hike through Unacademy's job portal.

Relevel has witnessed 64+ companies to date on its platform across sectors, which have interviewed the candidates on the basis of the tests. Frontend Development, Backend Development, and Business Development are the 3 tests that Relevel conducts for job seekers as of now. These 3 tests are diverse in nature ranging from MCQs, algorithmic tests, and case studies, and are conducted within a day. Sometimes, the Relevel tests include the building of a mini-app followed by a final round of interviews with an industry expert. Shashank Murali, the founder of the recruitment platform, currently heads it, as the CEO of Relevel. The platform successfully raised $20 mn from Unacademy on October 1, 2021. In terms of revenue, Relevel crossed $10 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) in June 2022.

Graphy - The Unacademy Group boasts of Graphy, which serves as a platform that is designed to help the creators of the country grow their audiences. Furthermore, it also helps them monetize their skills, host live cohort-based courses, and more. The all-new Graphy acts as a Saas platform and welcomes influencers, educators, and domain experts from across the country.

On June 22, 2021, Unacademy's Graphy announced its Graphy Creator Grant, which is deemed to help applicants start with their online school.

YouTube Channels - We all know that Unacademy first started as a YouTube channel. Though the business has grown far and wide since 2010, the company still runs its YouTube channel. The only difference is that the company now runs different YouTube channels instead of one, under names like Unacademy JEE, Unacademy UPSC, and others for school students between 6th and 8th standards.

Content Marketing - Unacademy is excellent in its marketing strategies, be it for the brand or its content. It markets its contents using numerous cutting-edge techniques. Furthermore, it uses social media marketing, email marketing, and advertisements on its website as well as on other websites to generate leads, and more.

In-app purchases - Unacademy also earns significantly through their in-app purchases. The company lists offers and discounts regularly on its app covering live classes, study materials, live mock tests, quizzes, other premium content, and more.

‘Unacademy Plus’ has nearly 100,000 subscribers as of 2021 and offers paid educational services. These paid subscriptions are the main source of revenue for Unacademy.

Learning Resources - Unacademy offers a wide range of learning resources for the students to go about their learning processes. These are mainly of two types:

• Pre-recorded videos
• LIVE sessions

Though most of the pre-recorded videos are viewable for free, the Live sessions are chargeable.

Unacademy decided to shut down Mastree, an online platform for kids to master communication, on September 2, 2021, almost one year after the company acquired the firm.

Vedantu - Founders | Funding | Business Model | Revenue | Competitors

Conventional learning and teaching methodologies endures a lot of inadequacies in learning outcomes. The major problem of classroom education is that it is never equipped enough to match every individual student’s learning pace and abilities. Vedantu resolves this problem with its personalized onlin…

StartupTalkyHimaya Presthitha

Unacademy - Challenges

Unacademy has faced numerous challenges since its existence as an ed-tech company in India. The most prominent challenge that it faces is tough competition from the other edtech companies thriving in India.

Unacademy Layoffs

Gaurav Munjal’s video in August 2024, sparked erratic reactions when he announced that there would be no appraisals for his employees while wearing a $400 Burberry T-shirt. The entrepreneur faced backlash on social media for delivering unfortunate news while he wore an expensive outfit. 

"I think 2023 was an average year for us. But 2024, if not great, was above average. But we did not hit our growth goals. The good part is that the burn is extremely low now, and we have a huge runway. And I kept saying that we don't have a survival risk," said Munjal explaining the reason for not giving out appraisals.

The announcement followed the layoff of 250 employees from marketing, sales, and streamline operations departments.

The ed-tech major had laid off around 1K of its workforce in April 2022. The Unacademy employees who were asked to leave include on-roll staff and contractual educators. As far as the reports go, around 600 of these employees were asked to resign throughout the last week of March 2022. This massive downsizing initiative was most likely fuelled by the impending slowdown of the venture funding, and unstable economic conditions and further propelled by an urge to bring down the overall cash burn of the company, according to sources.

Unacademy has laid off again, where around 150 employees were asked to resign in the last 2 days, as per the reports dated June 17, 2022. The laid-off employees belong to the sales and operations verticals and are primarily from Unacademy from Unacademy Group's core business - Unacademy and PrepLadder. The edtech unicorn justified that it laid off these employees citing poor performance. Improving efficiency has been declared as the sole aim of the company for becoming profitable.

Unacademy Suspended Contracts of Educators

After firing over 1K employees in 2022, Unacademy has allegedly suspended the contracts of its NEET and JEE doubt-solving educators for 6 months, as per reports dated August 2, 2022. The Munjal-led company terminated the mentioned contracts on July 31, 2022, and that too with no notice period. Numerous contractors were affected by this, the numbers of which are yet not confirmed by the Moneycontrol report, which reported the same. The educators were terminated by Unacademy for a period of a minimum of 6 months, where Unacademy would neither use their services nor pay them during this period. Unacademy has allegedly stated that it is strategizing something new, which would eventually reduce the requirement for doubt-solving platforms.

Unacademy-owned software as a service company Graphy has laid off employees According to several people aware of the development, Graphy has let go of 20–30% of its workers, or about 50 employees, in the last few weeks as per various news reports of October 26, 2023.

Unacademy Shutdowns

Unacademy launched USMLE in February 2022, which was designed to serve as a paid subscription program, a global test preparation platform that will help an MD (Doctor of Medicine) to clear the US medical licensing examination in the US, has been shut down. The platform was winded down because it failed to achieve the PMF (Profitability Mass Function). The USMLE platform had somewhere between 15-20 employees, who would be likely absorbed by Unacademy.

Unacademy also disclosed that it would be closing some of its business verticals that had failed to find a product-market fit, as per reports dated July 18, 2022.

Unacademy vs Allen Career Institute

Unacademy had set it up against Allen Career while expanding in Kota. Situations became so tense that Unacademy has to offer police protection for some of its teachers who switched from Allen Career to Unacademy, as per the reports dated June 10, 2022. The Rajesh Maheshwari-founded Allen Career was founded back in 1988 and has enjoyed quite a dominance in the coaching industry that thrives in Kota, Rajasthan.

The issue began when Unacademy started expanding its reach in the offline education space, and in this way, it turned to Allen Career and its teachers and began to hire them against huge compensations. Even the man behind the launch of Allen Career Institute’s Jaipur centre, Ashish Arora also joined Unacademy in February 2022. Gaurav Munjal had previously asked people in Unacademy to hire the best teachers and this plan seemed to have backfired. This has also enraged Allen Career Institute Chairman and Director in Academics Brajesh Maheshwari, who has posted a video warning the teachers from switching to other edtech companies. In this video, Maheshwari also referred to the teachers as 'greedy' and claimed that Allen Career has a workforce of over 11000 employees and that it would not matter much if some of them left the company. Besides, the teachers who would prefer to join other companies would also be blacklisted from the Allen Group and its partners, and would never be able to join the same group or its partners again in the future.

As per June 14, 2022 reports, Unacademy has listed 30 educators who have joined the company and were previously aligned with Allen Career, in answer to the previous warning from the Allen Director.

Unacademy - Investment

Unacademy has invested in two companies to date. Below are the details:

Unacademy - Competitors

The main competitors for Unacademy are:

• Toppr
• Byju's
• Vedantu
• Bluprint Firefly
• TutorVista
• Khan Academy

Khan Academy appears to be the top competitor because, like Unacademy, they also provide quality educational content for free from which large students benefit. Unacademy substantiates to be exclusive in its educational services and confronts several competitors across the nation.

Unacademy - Future Plans

Unacademy has big plans to grow and reach more people. It is adding new courses, partnering with schools and experts, and improving its technology.

The platform also wants to expand internationally to connect with learners worldwide. It aims to use technology and new ideas to make learning better and more accessible.

Unacademy is focusing on offering more services, like skill-based learning and career development, for specific markets. The team’s goal is to keep improving and provide value to students globally.

FAQs

What is Unacademy learning app?

Based in Bengaluru, Unacademy is one of the largest Indian learning platforms that prepare Class 6 - Class 12 students for their board exams, and competitive exams like IIT-JEE, UPSC, SSC, Banking exams, GATE & ESE, and more.

Who are Unacademy founders?

Gaurav Munjal, Dr. Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh are the founders of Unacademy.

Who is the CEO of Unacademy?

Unacademy is currently headed by Founder-CEO Gaurav Munjal.

When was Unacademy founded?

Unacademy was incorporated in 2015 as an Edtech company in Bangalore.

How Unacademy started?

Unacademy started in 2015 as a YouTube channel by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh to provide online education. It later evolved into a full-fledged ed-tech platform.

How to become a teacher at Unacademy?

If you are willing to become a Unacademy teacher or educator, then the Unacademy app is quite self-explanatory for an Unacademy educator to apply online. You simply need to make a demo lesson where you would have to explain any concept or topic. After you do that, the review team of Unacademy will go through your lesson. Then they will either approve the demo or ask you to remake it with adequate suggestions for improvement.

How does Unacademy work?

Unacademy is an Edtech platform that has over 50,000 registered educators who prepare lessons and course materials for students between Classes 6-12 as well as for the students who are appearing or planning to appear for competitive examinations.

What are the Unacademy Products?

The Unacademy products include - Learner App, Educator App and Parent App.

Who are the prominent Unacademy competitors?

Unacademy competitors include:

• Byju's
• Khan Academy
• Toppr
• Vedantu

What is Unacademy business model?

Unacademy follows a freemium business model. It offers free educational content and charges for premium courses, live classes, and subscriptions. Revenue comes from subscriptions (Unacademy Plus, Iconic), test series, partnerships, and advertisements. It targets students preparing for competitive exams, K-12 learning, and upskilling courses.

Which is Unacademy parent company?

Sorting Hat Technologies Private Limited is the parent company or the owner of Unacademy.

What is Unacademy net worth?

As of March 12, 2025, Unacademy's exact net worth has not been publicly disclosed.