Unacademy founder denies reports of the startup being on the block

Bengaluru: Edtech startup Unacademy laid off 250 workers on Tuesday in its latest round of restructuring, which triggered reports that the company was up for sale. On Wednesday, founder Gaurav Munjal took to X to quell these rumours.

“To set the record straight, Unacademy will have its best year in terms of growth and profitability. We also have many years of runway. We are building Unacademy for the long run. Ignore the rumours,” he urged on the micro-blogging platform.

Unacademy also put out a statement saying, “As part of our ongoing efforts to streamline operations and enhance business efficiency, we have recently undergone a restructuring exercise. This was necessary keeping in mind the company’s goals and vision for the year, as we focus all our efforts on sustainable growth and profitability.” 

Out of the 250 employees laid off, 150 were from sales while the others were from departments like business and marketing. This is SoftBank-backed Unacademy’s third round of layoffs in three years. Previously, Unacademy laid off around 350 workers in March 2023 and around 1,000 in April 2022.

A day before the layoffs, responding to an X post by Bhavin Turakhia, founder of Zeta, observing, “Premature founder boredom”, Munjal posted, “Hits the right chords.”

Many edtech startups are seeing a slowdown in business and growth after the end of the pandemic-driven lockdown. 

Unacademy’s losses narrowed by 41% to Rs 1,678 crore in FY23 while revenue simultaneously increased by 26% to Rs 907 crore. The startup has not disclosed its FY24 financial results yet.