Edtech unicorn Unacademy acquires UPSC test prep platform Coursavy
Unacademy plans to conduct bi-monthly scholarship tests — Aspire — for UPSC aspirants, and also conduct knowledge sharing summits with UPSC toppers, top educators, and experts from the field.
, the Bengaluru-headquartered edtech startup, on Thursday said it acquired a UPSC test preparation platform Coursavy for an undisclosed amount.
The current merger will help the edtech unicorn to strengthen its position in the UPSC test prep market. In fact, Unacademy plans to conduct bi-monthly scholarship tests — Aspire — for UPSC aspirants, and also conduct knowledge sharing summits with UPSC toppers, top educators, and experts from the field.
Coursavy educators, including Founder Vimal Singh Rathore, will now teach on the Unacademy platform, and also provide mentorship to the existing educators on enhancing discipline amongst the aspirants. The content from Coursavy will assist Unacademy educators in their live classes and help learners with their UPSC preparation.
Gaurav Munjal, Co-founder and CEO, Unacademy, said, "As we grow and strengthen our position as the leader in the test prep market, bringing Coursavy on board will play a strategic role for Unacademy in the UPSC examination category. At Unacademy, we are striving to democratise education in India, and this acquisition is a step in that direction."
Launched in January 2019 by Vimal, Coursavy was started with the vision to make high-quality and affordable educational content accessible to UPSC aspirants through technology. It developed a scalable learning platform and process which solves the challenge of a lack of discipline in learning.
The platform conducts live sessions that include daily doubt resolutions, core content classes, mentorship, study notes, evaluation, and feedback, to inculcate daily discipline among aspirants. At present, Coursavy has various subject matter experts, teaching over 70,000 learners through its YouTube channel and platform.
With a network of over 18,000 teachers and subscribers about 350,000, Unacademy entered the unicorn club, with SoftBank leading a $150 million funding round. In 2020, the startup has acquired Kreatryx and , besides investing in , and taking over the custodianship of .
The COVID-19 environment has led to increased demand for services of these edtech companies. For the first half of 2020, edtech was India’s second-most funded sector after fintech and financial services, according to YourStory Research.
Over $714 million in funding was raised by edtech startups across 46 deals compared to just $158 million across 20 deals in H1 2019. The 4.5X growth over the year-ago period was a result of rising demand for e-learning and online education triggered by the pandemic-induced lockdowns.
In May, Unacademy announced it had recorded a massive growth for the month of April 2020 — breaking all its previous records — in terms of revenue, video views, watch time, etc. The revenue for April 2020 was higher than 2017 and 2018 annual revenues, and the first half of 2019 combined.
Edited by Suman Singh