Unacademy CEO Denies Reports of Acquisition, Focuses on EdTech Growth

Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal speaks out against acquisition rumours, and Physics Wallah highlights its growth in offline business and its unit economics, while competing in the EdTech space.

Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal have rubbished completely the rumors doing the rounds about an acquisition of the company by Allen Career Institute for $800 million. In fact, according to a LinkedIn post on December 7 by Munjal himself, the company referred to the reports as having plunged from Unacademy's $3.4 billion valuation in 2021. This assured by the edtech giant's CEO to stakeholders, that the company intends to grow long-term and is definitely not thinking about mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

Transformative for Unacademy, said Munjal, would be the year 2024; especially its component referred to as the offline business-related unit economics. Citing the growth of offline centres reaching about 30%, tremendous cash burn slashed by 50% and a healthy cash reserve of $170 million with no debt, he pointed to the company's financial ace runway of greater than four years, sufficient to stretch further within the thriving EdTech.

Some of the other companies that the company has are doing well, Graphy is 40% profitable, growing, and Airlearn had $400K in annual recurring revenue after just having opened up in the U.S. Physics Wallah CEO Alakh Pandey, however, has spoken on the competitive landscape of Edtech and that students need choices. Pandey also rejected an Rs 75 crore acquisition offer by Unacademy. Physics Wallah became a unicorn at $2.8 billion while Unacademy is focused on affordability and access, breaking from its approach.