Unacademy to shut company-operated offline centres; to transition to franchise model: Gaurav Munjal

SoftBank-backed Unacademy will shut down its company-operated offline centres and transition those to a franchise model—a move further aimed at reducing its burn, the company's co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal told employees in an email on Wednesday.

The development comes just days after Ronnie Screwvala's upGrad pulled out of a potential merger between two of India's most-celebrated edtechs.

"Over the coming months, we will exit our company-operated centre business by converting them into franchise partnerships. The franchise model has already shown that it works: great local operators run operations, and we provide the academics, technology and reach. It is asset-light, capital-efficient, and aligned with who we are," Munjal told employees via an email, which YourStory has seen.

"By April, when this transition is complete, Unacademy will have one of the healthiest cost structures in the sector," Munjal added.

Addressing employees for the first time since the fallout of the upGrad deal, Munjal said that over the years, Unacademy has built "great online learning products" that have scaled and shown working economics and impact.

He also claimed that the company's UPSC, NEET PG, CAT, and multiple other verticals turned contribution-margin positive in calendar year 2025, while PrepLadder and Graphy were cash-flow positive for the full year.

He added that Airlearn grew from $200,000 annual revenue run rate at the start of 2025 to almost $3 million by the end of the year. For the calendar year 2025, Munjal said Unacademy's burn was down to Rs 200 crore from over Rs 450 crore in 2024.

"Unacademy has always been exceptional at one thing: building great online learning products. So we are going back to our strengths. Unacademy will be an online-first company moving forth. Like it was when we started in 2015," a company spokesperson said.

Munjal, who recently returned to the helm at Unacademy after the upGrad deal fallout, said the current calendar year will be about "growth" and not about "survival."

"After several years of doing the hard, unglamorous work of cost correction and unit economics, we now have something rare in this market: a scaled online business that is profitable at the vertical level, and a global product that is growing faster than we expected," he told employees in the mail.

"Our online test prep businesses continue to compound. Airlearn is becoming a serious global language platform. Our product teams are building some of the best learning experiences anywhere," he added.