Unacademy moved fast to break things. It ended up with a fracture

livemint.com:

Mint. They didn’t want to be identified. Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Unacademy, doesn’t agree with this assessment.

But he does believe that the company spread itself too thin. In the new normal of a stagnating online market, and at a time when Byju’s, India’s largest edtech company, has spectacularly imploded, he has moderated his ambition, focusing on fewer products. “Right now, I want to make the company profitable.

I want to focus on my core business and two to three projects that I am working on," Munjal told Mint. If that is indeed true, the company may have learnt the hard lessons. But the path ahead still remains thorny and uncertain.

Unacademy pivoted to offline teaching but that comes with its own set of challenges. The edtech unicorn is also dealing with high attrition and losses. In 2022-23, its losses were nearly double its revenue at ₹1,678 crore, data sourced from Tofler, shows.

Moreover, the company has to justify its steep valuation amid the funding winter in the startup world. Byju’s recently approached its existing investors for $200 million and had to agree to a post-money valuation of $225 million, Mint had reported. That’s a stunning decline from the $22 billion it commanded just two years ago.

What are Unacademy’s chances? The company started as a YouTube channel making educational videos. It grew exponentially during the pandemic, mirroring the trend observed in the edtech sector. As brick and mortar coaching classes stopped functioning, online education gained steam.

Investors sensed a gold rush. Unacademy secured a total funding of $877 million from the likes of SoftBank, Temasek, Blume, Peak XV Partners and Nexus Venture Partners among others. Flush with cash,