How Unacademy is Changing Online Education in India? Startup Story

Ritika Deshpande

Unacademy Startup Success Story

Unacademy, a Karnataka-based edtech company founded in 2015, is an online educational platform to enrich you with everything you need. It is specially designed for you to ace your competitive exams.

Our vision is to partner with the brightest of minds and change the way India learns. Be a part of our journey, and find out more about what we are doing every day. We are excited to give you a glimpse of our world.” is what they have to say about their platform.

With more and more people preferring e-learning over the traditional paper and pencil approach to studying, e-learning platforms are really starting to become the new norm. The pandemic definitely has played a huge part in the boost of e-learning companies. Offline educational institutions being closed contributed to a rapid rise in the utilization of these internet platforms.

Unacademy Startup Story

Unacademy was founded by Gaurav Munjal, Dr. Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh in 2015 with the aim of helping as many people get access to quality education from the comfort of their own homes. 

Gaurav Munjal, one of the co-founders and CEO of Unacademy, originally started a YouTube channel named Unacademy and uploaded a tutorial about computer graphics to assist his friends in acing their examinations.

He then decided to take it up a notch and he, along with his friends Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh started this interactive learning platform. It was officially launched in 2015.

They later introduced free live lessons to step up their interactive sessions. Gaurav Munjal says that his mission was very clear from the absolute beginning. It was to build the largest educational platform in the world.

Journey of the Co-founders

Gaurav Munjal has a BTech degree in Computer Engineering from NMIMS University, Mumbai, and worked as a software developer at Directi. He also was the founder and CEO of Flatchat, an app developed to connect potential flatmates, owners, seekers, and tenants in real-time.

Dr. Roman Saini possesses a medical degree (MBBS) from AIIMS, New Delhi. At the youthful age of 18, he had already written and published a research paper in a medical publication. When he was 22, he cracked the UPSC Civil Services exam, one of the toughest examinations in India.

Co-founders of Unacademy Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini, and Hemesh Singh

He then served as an IAS Officer and quit the post to join his friend Gaurav and launch Unacademy. The heavy focus on UPSC definitely seems to have its roots in Roman’s IAS background. In fact, Unacademy is said to have emerged from the need for a cost-effective platform for UPSC aspiring students.

Hemesh Singh has a B.Tech degree from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. Flatchat was co-founded by Hemesh who was its CTO.

What Unacademy Offers to the People

Unacademy hires highly professional and qualified teachers, each of them being a connoisseur of their own subject matter to ensure a very comprehensive learning experience. To date, they have successfully managed to hire more than 1,000 top educators.

Unacademy not only provides education for school and college students but also prepares individuals aspiring to crack competitive exams such as IIT JEE, NEET UG, CET, UPSC, GATE, ESE, etc.

Although one does have to pay to get access to all the amazing features of the e-learning app, it’s totally worth it. The app offers a plethora of helpful features— a daily planner, 1:1 battles to really keep the enthusiasm going, a community tab for student and teacher interaction, study groups for equally motivated students to exchange their knowledge, stats, live mentorship for when you need your doubts cleared and personal guidance, and as for the icing on the cake, its incredibly pleasing and engaging user interface which pulls you in every time you open the application.

Unacademy has recently introduced a parent-exclusive app called Unacademy Parent App which helps them track their child’s progress in a hassle-free manner. 

Success Story of Unacademy

The list of courses offered by Unacademy is neverending; from learning practical wisdom to computer science, from personality development to mathematics, and from verbal and non-verbal reasoning to geotechnical engineering, the platform has it all.

Hundreds and thousands of people cleared their NTA-UGC NET professional examinations with the assistance of Unacademy in 2019. Their app has more than 50 million downloads.

The best platform for students or people who want to crack competitive exams” exclaimed a reviewer. Unacademy has also gathered over 800,000 paid subscribers who swear by it for mastering any and every concept.

Unacademy is a unicorn startup [A private startup with a value of over a billion dollars] with a valuation of $3.44 billion and has collected a revenue of 403.4 crores INR as of 2021.

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