The pandemic may give India a new Unicorn

NEW DELHI|BENGALURU: Unacademy is in talks to raise $100-150 million in fresh funding, at a valuation that could catapult the ed-tech firm into the unicorn club, sources told ET.The financing bid comes less than four months after the firm closed a $110 million round led by social media giant Facebook and blue-chip private equity firm General Atlantic. Existing investors including General Atlantic and Steadview Capital are likely to double down on their stake, while a host of global strategic and financial investors, including US-based hedge funds and China's Tencent have booked interest in the company at a potential valuation of more than $1billion, two sources aware of the developments told ET."At this point, there are multiple funds in the mix. The final contours will be finalised in four to six weeks," said a person in the know.ET, however, was not able to ascertain all investor names. Gaurav Munjal, co-founderof Unacademy and Tencent did not respond to emails till press time on Thursday. In March, Munjal said the platform crossed a watch time of 1 billion minutes while educators took 100,000 live classes, of which a fourth was free for the month. The company has also launched subscriptions for Class 9-12, onboarding educators across the country. "The growth in the last few months has been massive, and the belief is that Covid-19 can structurally change consumption of education to online," said an investor directly aware of the matter.The ed-tech firm also counts the likes of Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Blume Ventures, Steadview Capital, and Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy as well as Udaan cofounder SujeKumar among its list of backers.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/373Hzme