Learning platform Unacademy has raised an investment of $150 million in a round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. Existing investors General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Facebook, and Blume Ventures also participated in the round.
The latest funding round values Unacademy at $1.45 Billion, a three-fold jump from its prior valuation of $510 million when it closed its previous funding round in February. With this fundraise, Unacademy is now a unicorn, and the second edtech platform after Byju’s with a valuation of more than $1 billion.
Unacademy said it plans to utilise the funds to launch new products, and build a world-class team and organisation.
“Learning from the best experts to achieve a life goal has mostly been a privilege, available only to those living in the top few cities of the country. At Unacademy, we are breaking that barrier and helping people achieve their life's most important goals, by giving them access to the best coaching from experts in the field,” said Gaurav Munjal, Co-Founder and CEO, Unacademy.
“We started with test preparation and with this partnership, we will launch other goals on our platform,” he added.
In a tweet, Munjal added that the goal “always has been to democratise knowledge and make it more affordable and accessible by getting the best experts of the world help everyone achieve their goals”.
Our goal always has been to democratise knowledge and make it more affordable and accessible by getting the best experts of the world help everyone achieve their goals.
— Gaurav Munjal (@gauravmunjal) September 2, 2020
Softbank is investing in an Indian firm after eight months, the last being Lenskart in December.
All documents related to the investment have been signed and the final closing is expected in the next few weeks.
Sumer Juneja, Partner for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said, “We have been closely tracking Unacademy for the last 18 months and have been impressed by their growth, quality of product and consumer engagement. They are truly democratising education in India and we look forward to helping them scale even further.”