Unacademy’s market valuation has more than doubled to reach $1.45 Bn in its latest series F round that has been spearheaded by Japanese tech giant SoftBank. As per the report, existing investors Facebook, Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures have also participated in the round. This is SoftBank’s first major investment in India in the year 2020, clearly reflecting Japanese investor’s cautious attitude after WeWork’s IPO fiasco.
After the investment, SoftBank may take a 14% stake in the company. The investment will also obviously pave for change in ownership pattern as well as lead to a secondary transaction and thereby cause exit for some investors.
The investment makes Unacademy India’s second most valued Edutech startup after Byju’s, which is valued a little over $10 Bn.
Bengaluru based Edutech major had given a hint about its latest fundraising after the company’s board agreed to increase its authorized share capital in extraordinary general meeting held earlier this month. As per the regulatory filings, the company has increased its authorized share capital from 48,49,600 to 67,49,600 shares.
In the same meeting, Unacademy agreed to increase its ESOP pool size from 53,044 to 65,017 options. This after the company decided to reward 11,973 fresh shares to its employees. Techpluto had exclusively reported this development few days back.
Unacademy’s series E round that took place in February infused capital worth $110 Mn, with General Atlantic leading the round. The round also brought heavyweight and high profile company like Facebook on Unacademy’s board while several existing investors also participated in the round.
According to regulatory filings, post series E round General Atlantic owns 9.94%, Facebook owns 3.31%, Nexus owns 3.18%, Sequoia owns 21.47%, Steadview Capital owns 7.39% and Blume Venture owns 3.10% stake in the company.
However, as indicated earlier the above mention investors’ stake ownership may undergo some alteration post-SoftBank investment.
Notably, in another important development, Unacademy and Prepladder have struck a share swap agreement as part of the acquisition deal. Unacademy had acquired Chandigarh based Prepladder for approximately $50 Mn. Regulatory filing shows that Prepladder’s three co-founders have been collectively allotted 2772 shares of Unacademy while Unacademy has purchased 1064 equity shares of Prepladder.
