upGrad completes $200 million acquisition of Unacademy

MUMBAI: The edtech classroom just got a little more crowded and a lot more consolidated. Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad has completed its acquisition of Unacademy for just over $200 million, bringing two of India’s prominent education platforms under one roof after months of negotiations.

The transaction, valued at Rs 1,955 crore, was structured as a 100 per cent share swap, with Unacademy investors set to receive one seat on upGrad’s board. Ronnie Screwvala announced the completion of the deal in a LinkedIn post.

For upGrad, the acquisition marks a significant expansion beyond its established businesses in higher education, professional learning, study abroad and upskilling. Unacademy brings a sizeable online test-preparation operation covering UPSC, JEE, NEET and GATE, along with its language-learning platform Airlearn.

The deal also represents a dramatic reset in Unacademy’s valuation story. The company reached a peak valuation of $3.44 billion in 2021. Its latest transaction value puts the acquisition at more than 90 per cent below that peak.

Yet the numbers around the current business paint a more nuanced picture. Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said the company currently has a topline of around Rs 400 crore, while most of its businesses are profitable or close to profitability. It also has Rs 900 crore in cash.

The road to the acquisition has been anything but straight.

Discussions began in November last year, but were called off in January amid differences over valuation. The two companies revived negotiations in March, eventually settling on the share-swap structure.

The Competition Commission of India cleared the combination on July 7, paving the way for the transaction to close.

Screwvala said the relationship between the two companies goes back further, recalling an initial conversation in 2020, when Munjal approached him and upGrad co-founder Mayank Kumar about bringing the businesses together.

That proposal did not move forward at the time, but Screwvala said it demonstrated the scale of what Unacademy was building. The conversations resurfaced in July 2025, when Munjal again approached upGrad.

The combination brings together distinctly different positions in India’s education market.

upGrad has built its business around higher education, professional learning, career progression and international education, while Unacademy has a stronger consumer-facing identity in test preparation and online learning.

Munjal will continue to lead Unacademy following the acquisition.

Unacademy’s educator ecosystem has generated more than 10 billion views on YouTube, according to Munjal. Airlearn, meanwhile, became one of the world’s three most-downloaded language-learning apps in less than two years, and will also become part of the combined portfolio.

For upGrad, that adds not only a test-preparation business but also another consumer brand and a technology-led product ecosystem.

The acquisition arrives as India’s edtech sector moves away from the pandemic-era obsession with rapid expansion and sky-high valuations towards profitability, sustainability and consolidation.

With Unacademy now folded into upGrad, the deal effectively joins two different sides of India’s education market, one focused on career advancement and higher education, the other on mass-market learning and competitive examinations.

The next test will be whether the promised synergies can turn that combination into a stronger education business, rather than simply a bigger one.