Unacademy acquires Blume-backed TapChief

Online learning firm Unacademy said on February 16 that it is acquiring TapChief, a four-year-old marketplace for gig workers, continuing its string of acquisitions over the last few months.

Founded by Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna and Arjun Krishna, TapChief had raised $1.5 million in late 2019 led by Blume Ventures- also an early backer of Unacademy.

According to Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal, colleges don't prepare students for the jobs they will end up at after college, and there is a lot of reliance on colleges to get companies for placements.

“So there is a huge chance that if you went to a not so good college because of your examination rank post school then even if you worked very hard there is a high chance that you’ll not get your dream job. Because your college won’t be able to attract the best companies. And don’t even get me started on the quality of education (except the top 5% of colleges). Majority of my Computer Science Class could not write a for loop when we graduated,” Munjal said in a Twitter thread.

Acquiring TapChief will help Unacademy fix this problem and help students get access to the best jobs and companies, he said.

Unacademy will also use this acquisition to build out a new product- Unacademy Pro, a platform which will help students “get their dream job.”

Unacademy is currently valued at $2 billion, with investors such as SoftBank Group, Tiger Global, General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital. Its valuation has surged by over four times in the past year alone, in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has turbocharged online learning.

In the process it has also acquired Mastree, PrepLadder and Coursavy, among others. All these companies operate in various verticals of the online learning space, from civil service exams to K12.