Indian EdTech startup Unacademy lays off 12% of its workforce as tech job cuts grow

Indian EdTech startup Unacademy is laying off 12% of its workforce, making it the latest in a series of tech companies that have implemented staff cuts amid mounting recession fears.

According to a report by Reuters, citing an internal mail from the company’s CEO, the company blamed the funding winter and pressure to turn profitable for making the hard decision. “Today… funding is scarce and running a profitable business is key,” CEO and co-founder Gaurav Munjal said in an email sent to all staff.

A spokesperson for Unacademy also declined to comment on the layoffs and did not disclose the number of staff impacted by the job cuts or the current headcount. However, Indian business news publication Moneycontrol reported that the SoftBank-backed startup had laid off about 380 employees, reducing its total employee count to under 3,000.

Meanwhile, Unacademy is not alone. Other Indian Edtech startups have also laid off thousands of employees over the past year as they struggle to raise new funding caused by the global economic slowdown. Meanwhile, at least 536 companies have let go of 157,088 tech workers, according to Layoffs.FYI, a site that’s tracked tech layoffs using data compiled from public reports.

Unacademy provides educational content such as video lectures and examinations. In November 2020, The Bangalore, India-based startup raised new funding at a $2 billion valuation led by Tiger Global to democratize education and make it more affordable and accessible.

Founded in 2015 by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini, Unacademy was originally created in 2010 via a YouTube channel and was officially launched in 2015.  Unacademy’s online platform provides content for major competitive examinations as well as offers short lectures in the form of videos on different subjects which can be accessed for free.

To date, Unacademy has over 47,000 educators, teaching in over 14 Indian languages, and learners spread across 5,000 cities. Over 150,000 live classes are conducted on the platform each month and the collective watch time across platforms is over 2 Billion minutes per month.