Unacademy, an edtech platform, revealed on 2nd October that it purchased Swiflearn, an online platform that offers live face-to-face online tuitions to school students.
While the cost of the sale was not disclosed, Unacademy stated in a press release that the acquisition is in line with its aims to improve its position in the K-12 category and optimise its product offerings in the field.
Getting to know Swiflearn and Unacademy
Swiflearn is an online platform for academic courses that offers a tailored home tuition experience from qualified experts. It was founded in 2019 by Abhinav Agarwal and Anand Bakode, both IIT Bombay alumni. The programme aspires to turn traditional classroom instruction into an entirely online experience.
Swiflearn delivers customised home tuition experience for kids in grades 1-10 in CBSE and ICSE boards. The website provides online tutoring in English, mathematics, and science, as well as additional subjects such as mental aptitude, life skills, and Vedic maths.
Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini created Unacademy in 2015, and it now has 60,000+ registered educators and 62 million learners on its platform. Unacademy, Graphy, Relevel, and CodeChef are all part of the Unacademy Group. Since last year, the corporation has been on a buying binge.
In March of this year, it bought Handa Ka Funda, a Jaipur-based online tutoring platform for several competitive examinations. In February, it bought a controlling share in TapChief, a professional networking and future-of-work platform.
What does this acquisition mean?
Unacademy Group CEO and co-founder Gaurav Munjal stated:
“Swiflearn is building a high impact personalised and scalable learning product that will change the way students learn. Abhinav, Anand and the team have developed a great product that is seeing tremendous traction. We have a shared vision to make quality education accessible and affordable for students of all ages, and we are delighted to have them as part of the Unacademy Group.”
Abhinav Agarwal, co-founder of Swiflearn, said:
“We are very excited to join Unacademy, since our strengths of pedagogy, content, and personalised classes combined with Unacademy’s product, brand and reach will make it a strong value proposition in the K-12 market. Anand, I, and the team of Swiflearn are looking forward to working closely with the entire team at Unacademy and learning from them.”
Swiflearn now has over 1,500 instructors. Every month, it hosts over 30,000 lessons and has over 120,000 registered users on its site. In June 2021, the Gurugram-based firm secured $3 million (Rs 21.9 crore) in a pre-Series A investment headed by Stellaris Venture Partners, Venture Highway, and a few angel investors, including Varun Alagh (founder of Mamaearth), Ramakant Sharma (founder of Livspace), and Alok Mittal (Founder of Indifi).
India’s EdTech scene
With the COVID-19 epidemic serving as an inflexion moment, the Edtech sector has witnessed massive development internationally, especially in India. Many offline classrooms moved online to maintain educational continuity while conforming to social distancing norms.
BYJU’S, Unacademy’s competitor, has been steadily growing its business through acquisitions. Earlier this year, the business purchased Aakash Educational Services Ltd for approximately USD 1 billion, estimating that it had raised over USD 1.8 billion since the outbreak began. BYJU’S also acquired Great Learning and Epic, both of which are situated in the United States.
