Edutech startup Unacademy acquires PrepLadder for $50 million

Online learning startup Unacademy said on July 7 that it has acquired PrepLadder, an online portal to prepare for medical entrance exams for $50 million in a cash and stock deal.

Chandigarh-based PrepLadder, founded by Deepanshu Goyal and Vitul Goyal in 2015, has raised no venture capital so far, and the acquisition is also its first external fundraise, so to say.

Unacademy allows educators to create videos for courses from school level learning to college entrance exams across streams, besides for more advanced courses such as civil services exams and MBA entrance tests. It is currently India’s second-highest valued ed-tech startup at over $500 million, after Byju’s.

Moneycontrol reported on June 5 that Unacademy is raising funds at over a billion dollars in valuation.

PrepLadder has about 18,000 paid subscribers on its platform, CEO Deepanshu Goyal said in a Zoom webinar. While the average user spends 90 minutes a day on PrepLadder’s platform, premium users spend over 400 minutes a day consuming its content.

Unacademy CEO and co-founder Gaurav Munjal said that it has 200,000 paid subscribers and that it's revenue has grown 10x in the last 12 months.

The acquisition also underlines the consolidation happening in India’s ed-tech space, as large players want to diversify into newer segments and are looking to snap up smaller fast-growing players.

This is also boosted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which took millions of students to online learning overnight, and gave these companies revenues in 2-3 months which they would have otherwise achieved in a year.

Moneycontrol reported on July 3 that Byju’s is in talks to acquire WhiteHat Jr., a 1.5-year-old upstart focusing on coding classes for children between ages 6-14, for as much as $300-350 million.