Unacademy buys PrepLadder for $50 mn to boost medical test prep category on platform

Online test preparation and learning platform Unacademy has acquired postgraduate medical entrance exam preparation platform PrepLadder for $50 million (Rs 374 crore at current exchange rates).

The acquisition will strengthen Unacademy’s presence in the medical entrance examination category, according to a statement.

This is Unacademy’s fourth acquisition so far, as the company pursues an inorganic growth strategy. It earlier bought Kreatryx, an examination preparatory portal for engineering graduates, and CodeChef, a non-profit educational unit of the Bhavin Turakhia-led Directi Group, which helps programmers to improve their skills. In 2018, the company acquired Jaipur-based online education and career portal WiFiStudy. 

“As we strengthen our position as a market leader in the test prep market, bringing PrepLadder on board will play a strategic role for Unacademy in the medical entrance examinations category. At Unacademy, we have been working towards democratising education and this acquisition is a step towards achieving that goal,” Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, said.

PrepLadder was founded in 2016 by Deepanshu Goyal, Vitul Goyal and Sahil Goyal, and specialises in medical examinations, providing access to education services and preparation material for exams such as NEET PG, AIIMS PG, NEET SS and FMGE. It currently has over 85,000 active subscribers.

“Unacademy and PrepLadder are working towards the common goal of making quality education accessible to all. We believe that the synergies between both products will truly create a mark in the industry,” (Deepanshu) Goyal said.

Uncademy, which was founded in 2015 by Munjal, Roman Saini, Hemesh Singh and Sachin Gupta, began as an educational YouTube channel providing free video content for various entrance examinations on its platform. 

Subsequently, it developed two proprietary apps — one for learning, called Unacademy Learning App, and another for teaching, called Unacademy Educator App. 

The learning app operates on a freemium model -- it offers both free and paid content. In October 2018, it launched a paid product, called Plus, which is a private discussion platform that offered live video classes and personalised classroom experiences.

In its last known funding round, Unacademy’s parent company Sorting Hat Technologies raised $110 million from General Atlantic and Facebook. It counts Sequoia Capital India, Nexus Venture Partners, Steadview Capital and Blume Ventures as its investors as well.

The platform currently has over 10,000 educators, more than 30 million learners and caters to over 35 exam categories. The firm claims it has recorded a 100% increase in its paid subscriber base in the past three months.

“With increased emphasis on online learning in recent times, the average daily watch time across Unacademy platforms has witnessed a steep increase of 100%. The monthly watch time minutes has also reached an all-time high of over one billion,” the statement added.