Unacademy launches Rs 100 crore grant for online educators, influencers

Edtech startup Unacademy on Tuesday said its new product Graphy has unveiled a Rs 100 crore (about $13.5 million) grant to help the platform’s users launch their online school.

Beneficiaries of the Graphy Creator Grant may include creators, influencers, subject matter experts, teachers, and instructors from any industry, who aim to create an online school and learning community, as per a statement.

The grant’s corpus will be deployed to the beneficiaries over 2022 and 2023.

The purpose of the grant is to provide creators with the initial capital required to start their online school and develop a learner community while ensuring a reliable revenue stream as they develop their content, the statement added.

On the basis of the application, the applicant will be informed about the grant they are eligible for, and they will receive 50% of the funds post-approval. The remaining 50% will be disbursed after the launch of the course.

Additionally, chosen applicants will be assigned a relationship manager, who will help them build their online school and learning community while suggesting proven promotion strategies to help them grow the business.

“Creators are the lifeblood of the digital world and working with inadequate resources can be a tiring process. Our vision to facilitate and enable creators to achieve financial freedom led to the conception of the Graphy Creator Grant,” Graphy co-founder and CEO Sumit Jain said.

Bengaluru based Unacademy had launched a beta mode of Graphy mid-2020 with a separate co-founding team to let educators and content creators alike grow audiences, monetize skills, and host live cohort-based courses online.

For example, Indian Grandmaster (chess) Viswanathan Anand hosts a community and “clan,” to work on courses for Graphy end users, with the latest certificate course that is currently accepting registrations being priced at Rs 4,999 per learner.

The course will have Anand personally analyse the games of the students, and provide them with personalised feedback on how to improve.

Apart from Anand, Graphy claims to host over 200 active creators.  Sushil Kumar and Shobhit Bakliwal are the other two co-founders of Graphy.