ROMAN SAINI
Top tech and startup stories this week
Welcome to a new edition of ETtech Unwrapped – our weekend newsletter packed with the most important stories this week. Let’s take a look.
TCS CEO’s pay hike; L Catterton’s India fund
IT major TCS paid Rs 26.5 crore in remuneration to CEO and MD K Krithivasan in FY25. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.
Unacademy founders’ shift to AirLearn, Jain’s offline role are strategic: Gaurav Munjal to employees
Munjal sent an email to Unacademy’s employees to set to rest speculation of impending layoffs at the company. The Unacademy board had been in talks with Munjal for over a year about his potential exit, given his lack of interest in running an offline coaching business.
Exclusive: Unacademy founders Munjal, Saini set to exit, shift focus to AirLearn
Unacademy cofounder Gaurav Munjal is stepping down as CEO, with Sumit Jain taking over amid a company reset and focus on AirLearn. Fellow cofounder Roman Saini is also exiting an active role. This leadership change follows internal discussions and a shift from online test prep to physical centers, impacting the edtech's business.
Unacademy founders exit; Ola Electric’s freefall
Happy Wednesday! Unacademy cofounders are planning to exit the edtech firm as the company expands its offline footprint. This and more in today’s ETtech Morning Dispatch.
Unacademy now ‘default alive’, to cut cash burn to Rs 200 crore in 2025: CEO Gaurav Munjal
Unacademy aims to reduce cash burn to under Rs 200 crore in 2025, a sharp drop from Rs 1,000 crore in 2021. CEO Gaurav Munjal says the startup is now “default alive” with Rs 1,200 crore in reserves. Graphy and PrepLadder are generating cash, and 70% of offline centres may turn profitable. Despite a 7% dip in FY24 revenue to Rs 840 crore, net losses narrowed significantly.
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Unacademy’s Airlearn hits 70,000 daily users, $2 million bookings run rate
Unacademy’s language learning app Airlearn has reached 70,000 daily users and nearly 300,000 monthly users, with 17,500 paid subscribers and a $2 million bookings run rate. Popular in the US, UK and Germany, it rivals Duolingo. Meanwhile, Unacademy’s revenue fell 7% in FY24, with net losses narrowing significantly.
Unacademy cofounder and CTO Hemesh Singh quits edtech startup
Hemesh Singh, cofounder of Unacademy, transitions from CTO to advisory role after a decade. Singh's exit is the latest in a series of high profile exits from the edtech startup, which now primarily focuses on offline test preparation. Despite multiple layoffs, Unacademy reduced its net loss by 41% in fiscal 2023.
Unacademy’s FY23 revenue rises 26% to Rs 907 crore, loss shrinks
Test preparation startup Unacademy said its losses narrowed by 41% to Rs 1,678 crore in FY23, a period riddled with incessant layoffs at the firm. Employee-related expenses went down 28% to Rs 1,281 crore in FY23.
Unacademy appoints Sandhydeep Purri as chief people officer
Prior to joining Unacademy, Purri was chief people officer at Sapphire Foods, overseeing HR strategies for brands such as Pizza Hut and KFC. Before that, she worked at Aditya Birla Group’s retail sector.
Unacademy CFO Subramanian Ramachandran resigns
This is the second exit among chief executive Gaurav Munjal's team of direct reportees since August, when the startup's chief operating officer Vivek Sinha took to LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) to announce his resignation.
Edtech firm Unacademy’s COO Vivek Sinha resigns
Sinha had joined the company in 2020 after a decade with organisations such as Reliance Energy, Lodha, MobiKwik and Oyo.
Sacked teacher of Unacademy says his remark misinterpreted, alleges firm acted under social media pressure
In a video on his YouTube channel, fired teacher Karan Sangwan said he made the generic remark on his YouTube channel and not during his lecture at Unacademy.
Unacademy sacks teacher who appealed students to vote for educated candidates
The teacher, identified as Karan Sangwan, has started his own YouTube channel and announced that he will post details around the controversy on August 19.
Social networking platform Slick raises $1.6 million in funding
The company said the funding will be used to enhance Slick's user experience, drive innovation, and develop cutting-edge features to attract more users.
Unacademy monthly burn down to $7 million from $20 million: CEO Gaurav Munjal
Taking to Twitter on Friday (November 4), Munjal said, "Winter will get worse. Get to profitability asap. And then grow from there. Stop all unnecessary spends. Focus on building great Products and organic Traction Channels."
Venture capitalist Tim Draper leads investment in Bengaluru startup Up
A firm backer of cryptocurrency, Draper is known for his early investments in companies such as Tesla, Angelist, Coinbase, Switch, Skype and Hotmail. He also helms the entrepreneurial reality TV show ‘Meet the Drapers’, in which startups get a chance to pitch to venture capitalists for a chance to win a $1 million investment.
What’s next for Unacademy as it slashes 1,000 jobs in a massive cost-cutting exercise
According to people aware of the matter, out of the 1,000 employees who have been fired in the past few weeks, about 300 were educators on contracts, while the rest were in sales, business and various other functions.
Unacademy announces its biggest ESOP buyback worth $10.5 million
Edtech startup Unacademy has announced its biggest ESOPs buyback, its third so far, barely a month after it rolled out an industry-first teacher stock options plan.
ConnectedH raises $2.3 million in seed funding from Kalaari, others
ConnectedH, a healthtech startup that connects and digitalises diagnostics labs, will use the funding from Kalaari Capital and Incubate Fund India to to develop new products and ramp up sales, as well as for further expansion in Delhi NCR.
Lio raises Rs 37 cr from Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed India
The company plans to use the investment primarily to expand its engineering team and increase the number of users of the mobile application
Edtech startup Newton School raises $5 million in funding
The funding round saw participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Prophetic Ventures and Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh.
Streaming platform ALTBalaji picks up 17.5% stake in celebrity engagement platform Tring
Launched in February 2020, Tring has become one of the leading players in the celebrity video shout-out space. The investment by ALTBalaji values the company at around Rs 100 crore.
Dating app TrulyMadly raises Rs 8.1 crore
The company clocked in a revenue of Rs. 3.60 crore in the financial year 2018, Rs. 3.48 crore in 2019 and Rs. 3.45 crore in 2020. However, this fiscal year, the company said it is on track to do Rs. 9 crores in revenue.
Lightspeed, Sequoia Surge and others invest $2 million in Rheo
Rheo is building an ecosystem for mobile gamers where they can stream, watch, comment and create channels to monetise while playing video games.
Unacademy acquires test prep platform Wifistudy
In a bid to tap into the test prep market, online education startup Unacademy has acquired Jaipur-based online exam preparation platform Wifistudy.
Turakhia is Unacademy board director
"Bhavin's experience in management and growing large companies is invaluable to Unacademy," said Munjal, CEO, Unacademy.
Sequoia, SAIF may back education startup Unacademy
Sequoia, which has already invested in Byju's and math tuition platform Cuemath, along with SAIF Partners, are in discussions to back Unacademy, sources in the know said, with a deal likely to close in a few months.
Sachin Bansal, Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Kunal Shah join hands to back Unacademy, along with Blume ventures
Unacademy, which allows educators to create courses on the platform, has recorded close to 25 million views since inception.
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