Indian Edtech major Unacademy has officially closed its acquisition by UpGrad for just over $200 million. This marks a stark decline from its peak valuation of around $3.4 billion in 2021. The deal was structured as an all-stock transaction, and the Unacademy co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal confirmed the completion of the merger, acknowledging the dramatic shift in valuation while expressing confidence in the new path forward in a post on Tuesday, September 1, 2026.
Munjal said that with a topline of around 400 crores, most businesses profitable or near-profitable, and 900 crores in the bank, the Unacademy team had every option to keep going independently. However, the company ultimately chose to merge with upGrad, with Munjal adding, “But sometimes, you are drawn towards a path that is more exciting than the one that makes you more money.”
With the merger, upGrad enters the online test-prep market, adding to the pre-existing higher education, upskilling, and study-abroad services and programmes of Unacademy, including a whooping 10 billion views in their YouTube channel, as quoted by Munjal, in competitive examinations like UPSC, JEE, NEET, and GATE.
Munjal ends his post by acknowledging his team and the people who built Unacademy since the dawn, stating, “I'm looking forward to the path ahead, and I am very sure that our shareholders will create immense value from the merger hereon. My heartfelt thanks to every employee who stayed when it would have been easier to leave. To everyone who worked with us in the past. To our educators. To our investors. To my co-founders. We did four ESOP buybacks that created real value for our employees, even though the founders and investors didn't create much for themselves in the process.
A special note to a few people without whom I would have personally given up when things got really hard: Shailendra Singh, Deepinder Goyal, Bhavin Turakhia, Sujeet Kumar, Bhavish Aggarwal, Aakrit Vaish, Mukul Arora, Shantanu Rastogi and Karthik Reddy. ”
As the two edtech giants unite, the goal remains to empower learners through personalized and high-quality educational content, aiming to build a sustainable and world-class educational powerhouse from India.
