Unacademy scores $110 Mn Series E round from GA, Facebook and others

Edtech startups BYJU’s and Unacademy are having a ball with the two raking in back to back rounds from renowned global investors. Seven months after raising $50 million in a Series D round led by Steadview, Unacademy has now scored $110 million in a fresh round led by General Atlantic.

Social media networking giant Facebook has also participated in the round. While the amount invested by Facebook isn’t known, a TechCrunch report mentioned that the Mark Zuckerburg-led firm has put in around $20 million.

Existing investors Sequoia Capital, Nexus, Steadview and Blume also participated in the round.

Unacademy has been valued at $510 million (post money valuation) in the fresh financing round. For the unaware, Unacademy offers free and behind the paywall online video lessons to crack various competitive examinations.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm recently expanded its ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) pool to over Rs 1,400 crore. It also entered into a “phantom stock” agreement with its co-founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Himesh Singh.

Announcing the fundraising, the company’s co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal mentioned that there are more than 800 educators who teach live on Unacademy every day.

Munjal also claimed that Unacademy records 150 million video views every month. Last year, the company claimed 74,000 users on Unacademy Active Plus - a paid subscription plan and 700 educators on its platform.

As far as financial health is concerned in FY19, Unacademy has earned Rs 11.66 crore in revenue from operations. It made a loss of about Rs 90.27 crore in the last fiscal.

Since last year, edtech companies have been witnessing heightened interest from investors. While BYJU’s valuation rose to $8.2 billion last month with a $200 million round from General Atlantic, Vedantu and Doubtnut had raised $66 million and $15 million respectively led by Tiger Global and Tencent.