In FY23, Unacademy posted a rather reasonable growth as compared to previous fiscals when it prioritized scale at high costs. The SoftBank-backed firm’s revenue grew modestly at 26.15% in the fiscal year ending March 2023 but it also managed to cut down losses by 39.4%.
While we will analyze its expenses in the second half of the story, for now let’s focus on its income streams.
Unacademy’s operating revenue grew to Rs 907 crore in FY23 from Rs 719 crore in FY22, its consolidated financial statements sourced from the Registrar of Companies show.
Financials FY23
Unacademy connects educators and learners in various streams for skill improvement by offering various courses. The company makes money from subscriptions of online and offline learning.
The sale of course subscriptions formed 97% of the total operating revenue which increased 27% to Rs 884 crore in FY23. The rest of the income accrued from educational products and advertising services.
The company also had other income of Rs 137 crore from interest on current investments, taking the total income to Rs 1,044 crore in FY23.
See TheKredible for the detailed revenue breakup.
On the cost side, employee benefits accounted for 31% of the overall expenses which remained flat at Rs 647 crore during the last fiscal year. We have excluded the ESOP cost from the financial years (FY23 and FY22) while calculating the total expenses due to its non-cash nature.
Expenses Breakdown
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- Employee benefit expense
- Advertising promotional expenses
- Legal professional charges
- Educator charges
- Technical expenses
- Others
Unacademy slashed its advertising cost by 32.6% during FY23. Its educator expenses (excluding Teachers ESOP), legal professional fees, technical costs, and other overheads took the total expenditure to Rs 2,060 crore in FY23 as compared to Rs 2,513 crore in FY22.
Check TheKredible for the complete expense breakdown.
The effective cost management and decent scale expansion helped Unacademy reduce its losses by 39.45% to Rs 1,004 crore in FY23 from Rs 1658 crore in FY22. Its ROCE and EBITDA margin improved to -38% and -83%, respectively. On a unit level, it spent Rs 2.27 to earn a rupee in FY23.
FY22-FY23
| FY22 | FY23 |
| EBITDA Margin | -182% | -83% |
| Expense/₹ of Op Revenue | ₹3.50 | ₹2.27 |
| ROCE | -47% | -38% |
In April, Unacademy claimed that it is close to profitability at the group level and its creators and educators-focused product Graphy turned operationally profitable for the month of December 2022 (during FY23).
Unacademy’s chief executive Gaurav Munjal claimed that the firm had Rs 1,800 crore in their bank with a runway of four years. He also added the runway will increase to eight years by next year as the company will further reduce its burn. The company didn’t raise any money after August 2021 while its peers including Byju’s, upGrad, Eruditus, and Lead cornered substantial funding since then.
To reduce losses and extend the runway, Unacademy also laid off 1,500-2000 employees in multiple restructuring exercises.
