Unacademy, a SoftBank-backed edtech startup, aims to reduce its cash burn to less than Rs 200 crore in calendar year 2025, down from more than Rs 1,000 crore three years ago, according to cofounder and CEO Gaurav Munjal in a post on social platform X.

“A significant improvement in cash burn in the main business.  We used to waste more than Rs 1,000 crore three years ago; this year, it will be less than Rs 200 crore.  “This is half of what we accomplished last year,” Munjal wrote.

He also stated that the company is currently in a “default alive” position, with Rs 1,200 crore in the bank—a term used to describe startups that are financially healthy enough to exist without further external funding.

Unacademy was founded in 2015 by Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini as a YouTube channel before becoming a full-fledged edtech platform.  SoftBank, Peak XV Partners, General Atlantic, and Tiger Global have invested $880 million in the company.

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Munjal stated that two of Unacademy’s businesses, Graphy and PrepLadder have begun to generate revenue on a monthly basis.

• PrepLadder, which was bought in 2020, is a platform for preparing for postgraduate medical entrance exams.
• Graphy enables instructors to build and monetize online courses.

In the offline segment, Munjal stated that almost 70% of Unacademy’s centers are expected to be profitable at the centre level by 2025.

Unacademy competes in India’s competitive test preparation industry with Aakash Institute (owned by Byju’s), Allen Career Institute (supported by Bodhi Tree Systems), and PhysicsWallah (funded by WestBridge Capital).

Unacademy’s operating income declined 7% to Rs 840 crore in FY24, down from Rs 907 crore the previous year, while its net loss shrank to Rs 631 crore from Rs 1,678 crore.

Earlier this month, Munjal said that the company’s new language-learning app, Airlearn, already has over 70,000 daily users and nearly 300,000 monthly active users.  The software competes with worldwide leader Duolingo.

Reflecting on previous strategic decisions, Munjal stated, “Any edtech (and we have made this mistake in the past) that seeks several acquisitions to expand is doomed to fail.  It simply doesn’t work in this market.  So having the ‘blinders on’ and not caring about who is buying whom—and focused on profit—is the best way to go.”

According to SA on December 4, Unacademy was in talks with Allen Career Institute about a prospective sale, which might value the company at $800 million—a significant reduction from its $3.4 billion high valuation in 2021.