The eternal student

WHILE EDTECH LEADERS ADAPT AMID FUNDING WINTER & BACK-TO-CLASSROOM SHIFT, GAURAV MUNJAL HOLDS INVESTOR LEVERAGE WITH CASH STILL IN THE BANK

- ANEES HUSSAIN

IF ALL OF INDIA'S edtech founders from the past decade were students in the same classroom, they would have had some hard lessons etched into their notebooks. The sector's post-Covid exam was brutal, with the curriculum changing faster than anyone could prepare for. The funding winter and a return to physical classrooms rewrote the rules overnight, forcing edtech bosses to take tough decisions.

If Vedantu slashed jobs to stay afloat, upGrad pivoted to corporate skilling and Byju Raveendran of Byju's, once the class topper with a $22 billion empire, was forced out in a messy boardroom battle. Amid the mayhem, Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and CEO of Unacademy, managed to scrape through, holding some leverage with investors with cash still in the bank.

Munjal is reportedly planning to exit his operational role at Unacademy in the next 2-3 months. Along with co-founder Roman Saini, he is said to be in advanced discussions with the board and investors to spin off Unacademy's language learning app Airlearn into a separate company.