Unacademy raises fresh round from Tiger Global & Dragoneer at $2 bn valuation

The ongoing rush of fundraising in edtech startups continues unabated with Unacademy raising an undisclosed amount in a fresh investment round from Tiger Global and Dragoneer Investment Group. In a statement, the company has claimed that the Unacademy group has been valued at $2 billion in this transaction.

This is the third tranche of funding in Unacademy this year. It had raised a $110 million round led by General Atlantic followed by another $150 million round led by Softbank in September this year.

That round also saw participation from Unacademy’s existing investors Facebook, Sequoia Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, and had propelled the edtech platform’s valuation to $1.45 billion. With the current investment, the valuation has witnessed a nearly 38% jump.

This pandemic-hit year has been an eventful one for Unacademy with nearly half a billion dollar investment flowing in and also a series of acquisitions made by the Bengaluru based company. It acquired five startups — Coursavy, PrepLadder, Master, CodeChef and Kreatryx — and launched Graphy, a new product with a separate founding team.

In June, it acquired the online algorithm and coding platform CodeChef for an undisclosed amount to start its own vertical to rival the likes of Byju’s-owned Whitehat Jr and Vedantu’s SuperCoders.

Interestingly, all the above-mentioned edtech ventures have another thing in common: Tiger Global. The New York-based hedge fund has significant investments in all the three companies and is very bullish on growth in the edtech space in India.  

“The opportunity to improve lives through online education is enormous because of its sheer accessibility. The Unacademy team has innovated rapidly to build a leading platform that is taking education to the farthest corners of India” said Scott Shleifer, Partner at Tiger Global about the fundraise.