Unacademy raises $50 million as Byju’s success draws top dollars into online education in India

• Unacademy has raised $50 million in a series D round of funding.
• The startup has investors like Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.
• The Indian online education space has players like Byju’s which has also reported profitability.

Indian online education startup Unacademy has raised $50 million in a series D round of funding from investors like Steadview Capital, Sequoia India, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.

The investment, which will go towards bringing on board more educators and better the product, also saw the founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini participate in the round.

“In the last few months, we have taken bigger strides toward achieving this mission. We have more than 400 top educators from across the country taking live classes every day on Unacademy Plus. This is available to every student, irrespective of their location,” said Munjal.

Unacademy plus is the startup’s subscription plan which has more than 50,000 learners. The startup, which was founded in 2015, has over 13 million learners.

“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,” said Munjal.

This also shows the growth trajectory of Indian online education space. Online education industry in India is expected to hit 9.6 million by 2021 user base, which was 1.6 million in 2016, as per a KPMG report. In fact, a survey by education startup GradeUp also shows that students are counting on online teaching for competitive exams — JEE, NEET, GATE, SSC and banking exams.

Meanwhile, the big player in Indian edutech space remains Byju’s – which had recently reported profitability with an increase in the number of paid users. Its revenue has tripled to reach ₹14.3 billion in the financial year ending March 2019, though it has not shared the net profit numbers.

This volume of numbers has also brought in the renewed interest of investors, who are betting on the Indian education technology space.

Interestingly, Sequoia is a common investor between Byju’s and Unacademy.

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