0A platform for both Educators and Learners! A decade ago, who would have thought this was even possible, yet, visionaries do just that- Create the unthinkable.
Unacademy is one such platform that, although it had a humble start, has grown into one of the most successful start-ups, with their tagline-
"We are India's largest learning platform."
Unacademy's tagline reflects their enthusiasm for changing the way of education and providing the best educational material to our country's future children.
Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini formed Unacademy in 2015. They established Unacademy as a forum for educators and digital natives. Their primary emphasis is on educators who create instructional videos and provide live lessons to students, as well as for the students to have access to more than 30 exam preparation categories.
Unacademy has transformed the way we learn, moving us away from the monotony of traditional classrooms and into the convenience of learning whenever and wherever we want.
Industry
- Education
- E-Learning
- Distance Education
- EdTech
Founded: 2015
Founder: Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh
How it all started?
It all started in 2010 with Mr Gourav Munjal, the CEO and the founder of the Unacademy. While in college and pursuing his engineering from Computer science, he was determined to make a difference. Once during his exam, he posted a video on YouTube, which surprisingly got a fantastic response. Along with his friend Hemesh Singh he started a real estate platform for bachelors and college students named "Flat–chat".
On the other side, there was co-founder Roman Saini, who cleared the UPSC examination at 16 years of age. After a while, Common-floor acquired Flat–chat, and finally, they got to the exit point of this business. Overall they earned around 50 lakhs as a profit from this start-up.
Gourav Munjal convinced Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh to improve our education system. Now their path was clear that they have to focus on the education system, specifically competitive examinations. So, they finally decided to start with UPSC because Rohit Saini was an expert in that, and also UPSC had a larger market and costly institutions. Thus, Roman Saini began to post videos on YouTube continuously.
And today, that journey led to the formation of Unacademy, which became India's Biggest education channel.
THEIR BUSINESS MODEL
Their whole business model is based on the Freemium Business Model. So in this business model, a company offers some of its services for free, and to access high-quality content and all of its programs, a small subscription fee/membership is charged.
Unacademy provides some of its core services for free while charging a subscription fee for high-quality content. Pre-recorded classes are free, but live, immersive sessions with top experts are not.
WHAT IS THEIR MARKETING STRATEGY?
Unacademy makes heavy use of digital marketing (Google, Social Media, and OTT channels such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and others), TV advertisements, radio, and out-of-home (OOH) promotional strategies billboards as part of its aggressive marketing campaign.
Digital marketing and OTT platforms generate the most revenue in tier-1 cities, TV and out-of-home advertising generate more leads in smaller towns.
FUNDING
Unacademy has joined the prestigious Unicorn group, which means that the company's value has reached $1 billion. Unacademy has received a total of 198.5 million in funding from seven rounds of funding. It has been funded by various investors, including the following:-
- Blume Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners
- Sequoia India and SAIF Partners
- Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, and NEXUS Investment Partners.
- Facebook, Blume Ventures, Nexus Ventures, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy, and private equity firm General Atlantic
- SoftBank Group
- Tiger Global
- Steadview Capital
WHAT DO THEY DO?
Unacademy provides a wide range of courses created by over 18,000 instructors.
The course curriculum includes the 10+2 syllabus and other competitive exams such as JEE, NEET, UPSC, SSC, Bank PO, CAT, GATE, etc.
The platform provides courses in the form of live classes as well as pre-recorded videos. Every fourth class of the week is devoted to answering students' questions. Unacademy is now offering courses in pastry making as well as chess.
THEIR VISION AND MISSION
The vision is to collaborate with the best minds to democratize education for anyone who wants to learn.
Mission- To build the world's largest online information repository for multilingual education.
THE HINDRANCES FACED AND HOW THEY SOLVED
Unacademy's data, which included over 20 million accounts, was hacked and sold by cybercriminals.
On the other hand, the CEO explained that the team had been closely monitoring the situation. No confidential information (financial details or location) — other than user names and email addresses — was compromised.
The main takeaway from this incident, according to Gaurav, was that the Ed-tech start-up's current emphasis is not on development but on building more robust systems. In a time of crisis, the entrepreneur assumes that it is always best to be well informed ahead of time.
AWARDS AND RECOGNITION
- Start-up of the year award by IAMAI received by Unacademy
- Indian Achievers Award received by Unacademy Educator Jaspal Singh
- Every month Unacademy organizes an award ceremony for the top-performing educators of the month.
UNACADEMY ACQUISITIONS
- Kreatryx- Acquired to expand GATE and Engineering Services Exam preparation.
- CODECHEF- Acquired to help the company is launching a coding skill vertical for school-aged children
- Wifistudy- To aid Unacademy in preparation for competitive public sector exams.
- PrepLadder- To offer high-quality education to more students around the country.
- Coursavy- Unacademy's leadership role in UPSC CSE preparation has been improved after acquiring Coursavy. Coursavy now teaches at Unacademy as well as mentors other educators. It aids them by instilling discipline in aspirants.
- Mastree- The main aim of acquiring this company was to concentrate on delivering low-cost education. It also aims to make the platform more user-friendly for students.
- NeoStencil- With this acquisition, Unacademy will expand its presence in Tier II and Tier III cities in India.
- TapChief- Assist students in getting their dream jobs by providing them with the best education and access to top companies that they would not otherwise have.
