Exclusive: No appraisal for Unacademy employees in 2024

Employees of edtech unicorn Unacademy will receive no appraisal in 2024, co-founder and chief executive officer Gaurav Munjal said at the firm’s virtual town hall. Even in 2023, it had not given cash appraisal and instead provided performance-linked stock options to employees.

“I think 2023 was an average year for us. But 2024, if not great, was above average. But we did not hit our growth goals. The good part is that the burn is extremely low now, and we have a huge runway. And I kept saying that we don't have a survival risk,” said Munjal in the town hall.

Entrackr has reviewed the video of the virtual town hall.

As per Munjal, the company won’t be able to do any appraisals this year as it didn't hit the projected growth numbers. “I know I said that we will do appraisals two, three weeks ago, but when we started the process, we realized that we made a mistake,” he said in the town hall.

Munjal urged its workforce to look at the bigger picture. “We are the ones who are still standing while our competitors are going down one by one,” he said.

Entrackr has reached out to Munjal for comment.

The development comes soon after the company laid off  250 employees citing efforts to streamline operations and enhance efficiency. Last month, Entrackr also reported that the SoftBank-backed firm was in early-talks to merge with K12 Techno which runs the chain of Orchids International Schools.

Unacademy raised its last equity round of $440 million at a valuation of $3.44 billion in August 2021. Since then, the firm has gone through mass layoffs, shutting down acquired verticals and exits of key employees including co-founder and CTO Hemesh Singh. Though, it has also launched several offline centers. The firm recently forayed into the language learning segment with a new app.

In the beginning of FY24, the company claimed that it was close to achieving profitability at the group level. While the firm is yet to file the audited annual report for the last fiscal year (FY24), it recorded a 26% jump in its operating revenue to Rs 907 crore in FY23 while controlling losses by nearly 40% to Rs 1,004 core.

Edtech companies have been going through hard times whether it is once-most valuable edtech company Byju’s or several growth stage startups. As per data compiled by TheKredible, edtech companies managed to raise only $138 million across 21 deals during the first half of 2024. In 2023, edtech startups raised $456 million while 2022 and 2021 saw $2.3 billion and $5.8 billion deployment in the space, respectively.