Unacademy bags $1 mn in funding from Flipkart, Paytm founders and others

The edutech start-up had raised $500,000 just four months earlier in April

Online learning platform Unacademy has raised $1 million in funding led by Blume Ventures, while entrepreneurs such as Flipkart co-founders Sachin and Binny Bansal, Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Freecharge’s Kunal Shah also participated in the round.
 
This is the second round of institutional funding bagged by Unacademy, with a previous $500,000 investment coming just four months earlier in April. Existing investors such as Stanford Angels along with Tracxn Labs and a few other individuals also participated in the round.
 
Since its launch in January this year, Unacademy says it has grown to over 1 million video views a month, with 100 teachers having created over 200 courses on its platform. Moreover, it says that in the past eight months, over 300,000 students have benefitted from its online tutorials.

 

“Within two months, the Unacademy Create app will be made available to all, so anyone across the world can create lessons in any language they like. After a thorough screening process, we will make the relevant lessons available on our platform that will be free for all to see,” said Gaurav  Munjal, co-founder and CEO at Unacademy, in a statement.
 
Unacademy plans to utilise the recently raised funds to develop its product, do research into delivering online education content more seamlessly and hiring top talent. The company’s plan to make its online education content free for all and focus on getting content in multiple languages online has won it praise and backing from several top name in India’s start-up world.

 
“Unacademy presents a great example of the beginnings of an incredible shift in India’s Internet—the ability of millions of new internet users using smartphones as their only access device to create and consume high quality curated educational content as easily as laying hands on a textbook,” said Karthik Reddy, Managing Partner at Blume Ventures.