upGrad has dropped plans to acquire Unacademy after the two sides failed to agree on valuation, two people aware of the development said.
The talks, one of the biggest consolidation moves in India’s edtech sector, have now formally collapsed.
“Yes, we are not proceeding due to valuation differences,” Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder of Temasek-backed upGrad, said in response to Mint’s query. “We were unable to arrive at a mutually agreeable valuation.”
Moneycontrol was the first to report the development on Thursday.
In November last year, upGrad proposed a share-swap deal that was expected to value Unacademy at $300-400 million, a steep drop from its $3.4 billion valuation during the 2021 funding boom. Backed by SoftBank, Temasek, Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and Peak XV Partners, Unacademy has raised about $880 million since inception.
For upGrad, the deal offered an entry into the test preparation domain and access to Unacademy’s ₹1,000-1,200 crore cash pile when capital remains scarce.
This is not the first time a deal has slipped away from Unacademy. Discussions on the company's sale have fallen through over the past two years, including talks with other edtech players, as valuation expectations failed to align with market reality.
Unacademy has been on the block for over two years, with founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini exploring ways to break off and separately run Airlearn, its high-growth artificial intelligence language learning vertical, as the company pivoted toward offline test preparation after edtech’s post-pandemic slowdown.
upGrad’s IPO plan
This also comes as upGrad prepares for an initial public offering in 2027. Mint reported in December that upGrad could raise $350-400 million in the IPO even as it scans the market for inorganic growth.
Unlike many peers, upGrad has turned operationally profitable and posted gross revenue of ₹1,650 crore in FY25.
The talks ran alongside upGrad’s discussions to acquire other select assets of Byju’s amid a larger consolidation trend in a sector still reeling from a post-pandemic bust.
