SoftBank leads $150-million round in Unacademy, valuation rises to $1.45 billion

Japanese investment giant SoftBank has led a $150-million round in education startup Unacademy, almost tripling its valuation to $1.45 billion in less than six months.

Unacademy confirmed the deal, the first Indian investment by Masayoshi Son-led fund in a year and after the WeWork fiasco.

Moneycontrol was the first to report, on July 13, that SoftBank was in talks to back Unacademy whose existing investors Sequoia Capital, Facebook, General Atlantic, Blume Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners also participated in the round.

“Our goal has always been to democratise knowledge and make it more affordable and accessible by getting the best experts of the world help everyone achieve their goals. We are just getting started,” co-founder Gaurav Munjal tweeted.

The startup was valued at $510 million in February this year when private equity giant General Atlantic led a $110 million round.

Founded by Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh, Unacademy allows educators to create videos for courses from school-level learning to college entrance exams across streams. It also offer more advanced courses such as those for cracking the civil services and MBA entrance tests.

It has 30 million registered users and 350,000 paying users, Munjal told Bloomberg.

The coronavirus has turbocharged the online education space, as students have been forced to learn from home.

Startups such as Unacademy, Byju’s, Vedantu, WhiteHat Jr and Eruditus have all benefited from this, raising money at higher valuations in a few months’ time. Indian ed-tech startups have raised a record billion dollars this year alone.