Edtech major Unacademy has clocked its 9th acquisition in 2022 so far, by bringing under its umbrella Bengaluru-based test prep startup Gate Academy, for an undisclosed amount.
Close on the heels of this acquisition, Unacademy has also launched 50 new education channels on YouTube to scale its access for millions of learners across academic and non-academic verticals, the company said in a statement.
It further added that the channels will help the edtech firm enter into newer learning concepts including direct and indirect tax concepts and an initiative to crack IIT's Joint Entrance Examination (JEE).
Founded by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini in 2015, Bengaluru-based Unacademy specializes in test preparation for a wide array of competitive examinations including civil service, engineering and medical entrance and banking.
So far, the edtech firm has struck eleven bets in total, which includes PrepLadder, TapChief, Mastree and CodeChef, among others.
With the latest acquisition, Umesh Dhande has joined Unacademy as Vice President, Academics, GATE and ESE.
Last week, Unacademy’s partner and chief marketing officer Karan Shroff had quit the startup.
In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Shroff informed that he would be parting ways with Unacademy after three years.
Unacademy, owned and operated by Sorting Hat Technologies Pvt. Ltd, has made two key senior level appointments over the last few months hiring former Airtel executive Navneet Sharma as chief business officer – new initiatives, to chart growth strategy, business plan and sales development frameworks for its test preparation business. Prior to that, Unacademy had appointed ex-Xiaomi executive Sunil Baby as chief business officer to spearhead growth and expansion of its offline network.
Edtech space is witnessing massive layoffs and some churn at the teacher and executive levels at a time when online edtech players hustle to expand offline as the world is clawing its way out of the covid-19 pandemic.
VCCircle had reported in December that the five edtech unicorns as of 2021, had invested close to $3 billion for mergers and acquisitions in 2021 alone.
