Edtech unicorn Unacademy lays off 380 employees in latest round of job cuts

The Softbank-backed start-up last laid off 350 employees in November

Unacademy, India's second-biggest edtech, has sacked 12 per cent or nearly 380 of its employees in its fourth official round of layoffs, moneycontrol reported on Wednesday. The Softbank-backed unicorn last laid off 350 employees in November.

In a note to the employees, Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy said, "We have taken every step in the right direction to make our core business profitable, yet it's not enough. We have to go further, we have to go deeper. Unfortunately, this has led me to take another difficult decision. We will be reducing the size of our team by 12 per cent to ensure that we can meet the goals we are chasing in the current realities we are facing."

Recently, CodeChef, a competitive programming platform for students and professional programmers owned by Unacademy, announced that it has been hived off from its parent company, citing macroeconomic conditions.

The company will now function as an independent business run by its current team. Unacademy will, however, hold a 30 per cent stake in the business as an investor and has also infused some initial capital that will help it function for the next 12-18 months.

"In the past, we never really focused on the financial viability of CodeChef, but being generously supported by Directi, and later by Unacademy, allowed us to keep doing our work without worrying about the financials," the company said in a Twitter thread addressing the development.

"But recently, due to the larger global economic slowdown, it has become clear that this cannot continue, and we need to find ways to sustain ourselves," the Tweet read.

Unacademy took over CodeChef in June 2020.