UpGrad in talks to acquire Unacademy at $300-400 million valuation: Reports

Edtech giant upgrad is reportedly in advanced talks to buy unacademy, a Bengaluru-based edtech company, in a deal valued at ₹2,500–3,300 crore ($300–400 million), according to media reprots. 

The term sheet is expected to be signed within the next three weeks, the report said.

Although the talks haven’t been officially announced, the potential valuation represents a sharp drop from Unacademy’s last publicly disclosed valuation of $3.44 billion in 2021, when it raised $440 million in a Temasek-led Series H funding round.

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As part of the proposed deal, Unacademy’s language-learning app, AirLearn, will be spun off into a separate company, while UpGrad will acquire Unacademy’s core test-prep business, including its growing offline learning centres. The deal is structured so that UpGrad will not hold any equity in AirLearn.

Notably, Unacademy has cut costs sharply over the past three years, reduce its annual cash burn from over ₹1,000 crore to around ₹100 crore. The company currently has about ₹1200 crore in cash reserves, making it an attractive acquisition target.

The talks follow reports that founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini were planning to step back from daily operations and spin off AirLearn as an independent venture. After a management reshuffle in September, co-founder Sumit Jain, who joined Unacademy through the acquisition of his startup CommonFloor, was appointed CEO of the test-prep business to oversee its offline expansion and drive profitability.

Founded in 2015, Unacademy became popular during the pandemic-driven boom in online learning, attracting major investors like General Atlantic, SoftBank, and Temasek.

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As demand for digital education slowed after the pandemic, the company shifted its focus to offline test preparation, shutting down several non-core verticals.

For FY24, Unacademy reported ₹839 crore in revenue, a 7% drop from the previous year, while net losses fell 62% to ₹631 crore, according to regulatory filings.

UpGrad, also founded in 2015 by Ronnie Screwvala, provides online degrees and professional certification programmes in partnership with global universities.

Temasek is a common investor in both UpGrad and Unacademy, having led a $120 million round in UpGrad in April 2021 and invested an additional $60 million in October 2024.

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