Exam prep startup Unacademy raises $4.5 mn in Series A funding

Online learning platform Unacademy, run by Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt. Ltd., has raised $4.5 million (Rs 30 crore) in Series A funding led by Nexus Venture Partners and existing investor Blume Ventures, the company said in a statement on Friday.

The platform allows educators to create courses using their app on various subjects, including exclusive content for various competitive exams, which can be accessed by students.

The company will use the new capital for growing its educator base from 200 to 2000 in the next one year, across exam preparation, language learning and professional growth topics.

"The team has done a great job in growing a community of committed educators nationally by providing them with easy to use powerful tools to share their knowledge, grow their influence and monetise their knowledge," said Sameer Brij Verma of Nexus, who is joining the company's board, in the statement.

The startup began as an educational YouTube channel by Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh and Sachin Gupta. In January 2016, they launched their free learning platform Unacademy.in.

Munjal and Singh were previously running Flatchat, which was acquired by housing portal CommonFloor in 2014. Saini is a doctor by profession.

"With the influx of capital, Unacademy aims to empower more educators who come on the platform to create highly engaging courses that impact millions of students," said Munjal.

In August last year, the startup raised  $1 million (Rs 6.7 crore) from a clutch of investors including Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal and Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, with Blume Ventures leading the round.

Blume also led the company's $500,000 (Rs 3.3 crore then) angel round in May.

Byju's is India's most funded company in the education and test preparation segment. In September, Byju's, run by Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd, raised $50 million (Rs 332 crore) in a funding round co-led by Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). A month earlier, it had raised $75 million (about Rs 500 crore) from Sequoia India and Belgian investment firm Sofina.

Other startups in the sector include Meritnation, Toppr, and Tutorvista.