Unacademy acquires majority stake in Mastree at over Rs 100 Cr valuation

Edtech companies in India are having a ball. While other businesses have been hit massively due to Covid-19 pandemic, edtech companies have been hogging the limelight for fundraising, valuation as well as driving merger and acquisitions. 

Continuing its expansion spree, Unacademy has invested $5 million in the K12 learning platform, Mastree for a majority stake. “Mastree is building a highly impactful subscription product, and it will change the way students learn. We are very happy to have Mastree as part of the Unacademy Group,” said Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy.

The Bengaluru-led firm has also provided an exit to Blume Ventures in Mastree. According to regulatory filings, Mastree has allotted 93,125 Series A CCPS at Rs 4702.65 per share for a total consideration of Rs 43.8 crore~$5.7 million to Unacademy. 

Post allotment, Unacademy would control 43.09% stake in the Shrey Ghoshal-led firm. Promoters hold 46.27% ownership while early investor Blume Ventures’s stake was diluted to around 10.5%. As per the announcement, it looks like the early-stage VC has transferred its partial stake to Unacademy.

As of now, there are no filings related to a secondary transaction that involves Blume or any other stakeholder. Several media reports mentioned that Unacademy acquired 51% stake in Mastree. There is no clarity whether Blume's existed partially or entirely.

According to an estimate by Fintrackr, Unacademy has valued Mastree in the range of Rs 100-105 crore. Blume Ventures had initially invested Rs 3.78  crore in the edtech platform at a valuation of Rs 21 crore.

This acquisition would strengthen its presence in the K12 learning space. The ten-month-old Mastree is a one-stop subscription product for STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) courses for classes 5 to 8. 

Along with providing live sessions for the subjects as mentioned above, the platform also provides features such as doubt solving, live quizzes, and personalised practice sessions. 

 Since March this year, Unacademy has closed its fourth acquisition deal including Mastree. Last week, the company acquired medical entrance focused startup PrepLadder for $50 million, while in June, it took over CodeChef, an online platform for coders. The munjal-led firm had also bought GATE preparation platform Kreatryx

This year has been turning out very well for edtech space as educational institutes, and offline classes haven’t been functional due to Covid-19 pandemic. Unacademy had raised a $110 million from Facebook, General Atlantic, and Sequoia at a valuation of $510 million. 

Byju’s turned decacorn when it recently raised an undisclosed amount from BOND Capital while Vedantu raised back to back rounds this year. Google-backed Cuemath is also in conversation to raise a large round. Importantly, Unacademy would start competing with these players after the acquisition of controlling stake in Mastree.