The Unacademy, one of the fastest growing educational startups in India, has just received the support of a major technology giant: Facebook.
The Social Juggernaut has participated in the Series E funding round of the four-year Indian startup, sources familiar with the matter said TechCrunch.
General Atlantic leads the round, the size of which is approximately $ 1
00 million. It wasn’t immediately clear to us how much of a check Facebook cut, but one source said it was under $ 20 million. The round rates the startup, which had raised $ 90 million prior to the current round, at over $ 350 million, the source said.
The Unacademy is aimed at students who are preparing for exams to get to college and those who are aiming for final courses. It enables students to see live classes from educators and later attend meetings to discuss topics in more detail.
A year ago, the startup launched a subscription service that gives students access to all live classes. Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and managing director of the Unacademy, tweeted earlier this month that the subscription service had become an ARR deal of $ 30 million.
This is the second time that Facebook is investing in a company Indian startup. Last year it participated in the $ 125 million funding round for Social Commerce Meesho, led by Prosus Ventures.
Facebook and Unacademy declined to comment.
Ajit Mohan, VP and CEO of Facebook India, said TechCrunch in an interview last year. The company was open to startups that develop solutions for the Indian market.
“Wherever we believe that there are opportunities beyond what we do today, we are open to further investment deals,” he said.
The Indian newspaper Mint first reported in December that the Unacademy was in talks with General Atlantic and GGV Capital to raise up to $ 100 million. TechCrunch expects GGV Capital to have invested in Edtech startup Vedantu earlier this month and will not be participating in the Unacademy funding round.
Vedantu and Unacademy compete with Byju & # 39; s, an Indian startup that has General Atlantic as an investor, and is valued at $ 8 billion. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has invested in Byjus, but has sold at least part of its shares, according to an approval file analyzed by the Entrackr office.
As India’s startup ecosystem begins to mature, it has started to attract corporate giants. Google, Amazon and Twitter have also invested in Indian startups. While Twitter supported the social platform ShareChat, Google invested in the hyper-local concierge app Dunzo.