Unacademy buys RheoTV, whose founders will now lead hiring test platform Relevel

• Unacademy will acquire 100% stake in the company, providing exit to all of its existing investors.
• Rheo TV founders will join Unacademy’s hiring tests platform Relevel as co-founders.
• Unacademy has acquired nine companies to expand its presence and offering in India.

Bengaluru-based edtech unicorn Unacademy on Monday, July 26, announced the acquisition of game streaming platform Rheo TV. As a part of the deal, Unacademy will acquire 100% stake in the company, providing exit to all of its existing investors. The companies did not disclose any financial details of the deal.

A unicorn, in startup parlance, is a private firm valued at or more than $1 billion.

Post the acquisition, Rheo TV founders Saksham Keshri and Prakash Kumar will join Unacademy’s hiring tests platform -- Relevel -- as cofounders. Notably, Rheo TV will cease to exist post acquisition and the entire team will join Relevel.

Rheo TV was founded in August 2019 to make professional game streaming a career option in India, by providing tools to drive engagement and offer monetisation. The company claimed that it had managed to attract more than 5 million users and over 10,000 live streamers within a year of launch.

The company’s existing investors include Unacademy’s chief executive Gaurav Munjal, along with other angel investors such as former country head of Google Mobile Mahesh Narayanan and Redbus founder Phanindra Sama, among others. Lightspeed India Partners, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge and AET Fund were investors in the company.

Unacademy was founded by Munjal, Hemesh Singh, Roman Saini and Sachin Gupta in 2015. The company claims to have over 50,000 registered educators and over 62 million learners. The company offers courses in 14 Indian languages to learners across 5,000 cities.

The company has acquired nine companies over the last few years to expand its presence and offering in India. The Unacademy Group comprises Unacademy, PrepLadder, CodeChef, Graphy and Relevel.

It has raised over $380 million from marquee investors like Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, SoftBank VF2, Facebook, General Atlantic and Sequoia India.

Unacademy competes with BYJU’s, which is the highest valued edtech startup in the world. The company, on Monday, announced the acquisition of upskilling platform Great Learning and is looking to expand internationally from this year onwards.

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