Unacademy Appoints Former CRED Finance Head Pratik Dalal As CFO For Offline Vertical

Bengaluru-based edtech unicorn Unacademy has appointed Pratik Dalal as the chief finance officer (CFO) of its offline business – Unacademy Centres. 

Unacademy cofounder and CEO Gaurav Munjal made the announcement of Dalal’s appointment in an internal message. “… Pratik’s diverse experience across corporate banking, fintech and consumer internet along with his consistent ability to deliver financial success for businesses will play a pivotal role as we work towards sustained growth and profitability,” he said. 

Inc42 has reviewed the internal message.

Prior to joining Unacademy, Dalal was the head of finance at the Kunal Shah-led fintech unicorn CRED. In the past, he also worked with Flipkart and Bhavish Agarwal’s Ola Cabs.

The latest development comes almost three months after Unacademy’s CFO Subramanian Ramachandran was reported to have resigned. 

In the last two year, Unacademy has seen a plethora of key exits. The following are some of the top-level executives who quit: 

• Arnab Dutta – Senior Vice President Strategy
• Vivek Sinha – Chief Operating Officer
• Abhyudaya Singh Rana – Chief of Staff, Chief of Compliance Officer
• Subramanian Ramachandran – Chief Financial Officer
• Siddharth Manchanda – General Counsel
• Tina Balachandran – Senior Vice President, Talent and Culture
• Sachin Aggarwal – Head Franchisee Business (Offline Centres)
• Karan Shroff – Partner & Chief Operating Officer
• Ashish Arora – Senior Vice President & National Head Academics

In November last year, Unacademy roped in Sandhydeep Purri as its new chief people officer (CPO).

Amid all these, Unacademy managed to reduce its cash burn. The unicorn’s consolidated net loss declined 41% to INR 1,678.1 Cr in FY23 from INR 2,847.9 Cr in the previous fiscal. Operating revenue increased 26% to INR 907 Cr in FY23 from INR 719.2 Cr in the previous fiscal year. 

Last month, Munjal took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce that the startup slashed its cash burn by 60% in 2023. He added that the startup had a cash runaway of four months. 

Munjal said that the startup’s online business registered a degrowth of 30% in 2023. He said the edtech giant’s EBITDA improved by 87% and its offline business, Unacademy Centres, saw its learners grow to 32,000 in 2023 from 6,000 in 2022. He also said that the startup’s Graphy vertical was on the verge of achieving profitability.

Founded in 2015 by Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh, the startup claims to have a network of 91K registered educators (teachers) and over 99 Mn learners. It has raised over $800 Mn till date and counts the likes of Temasek, Elevation Capital, Tiger Global, and SoftBank among its backers. 

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