Unacademy Slashed Its Cash Burn By 60% In 2023, Has Runway Of Over 4 Years: Gaurav Munjal

While the homegrown edtech sector experienced a severe slowdown this year, Unacademy cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Gaurav Munjal claims that the edtech unicorn managed to reduce its cash burn by 60% in 2023.

Ahead of the eighth founding anniversary of Unacademy, Munjal took to X to share some details about the company’s performance in 2023. “This year was a good year for us. And we have a lot to be happy about,” said Munjal.

He said the company’s current cash reserves extend to more than four years. 

This came hours after Entrackr, quoting the company’s internal memo, said that Unacademy had INR 1,800 Cr in their bank and has a runway of four years. This translates into a cash burn of nearly INR 37.5 Cr per month for the edtech giant. 

To be sure, FY24 also saw the first quarter in which Unacademy turned cash flow positive, driven by a reduction in cash burn.

While noting that Unacademy’s online business degrew 30% in 2023, Munjal said that the edtech giant’s EBITDA improved by 87%. Munjal also added that its offline business, Unacademy Centres, saw its learners grow to 32,000 in 2023 from 6,000 in 2022. 

Lastly, Munjal also said that the unicorn’s SaaS platform Graphy grew by 30% and is very close to profitability. Concluding his post, the CEO said that edtech is ‘awesome’ and is ‘here to stay’.

The spell of positive news comes after a tough 2022 and 2023 for the startup. The edtech giant fired thousands of employees to stabilise itself, cut costs and streamlined operations to focus on achieving profitability. 

Just in October, Unacademy fired around 20-30% of its workforce to focus on its offline business. However, a representative of Unacademy stated that the job cuts happened on the basis of performance and had nothing to do with layoffs or revenue growth plan.

The edtech major also saw several top exits, including CFO Subramanian Ramachandran and COO Vivek Sinha.

While Unacademy is yet to file its financial statements for FY23, the startup reported consolidated losses to the tune of INR 2,848 Cr in FY22, up 85% year-on-year (YoY) from INR 1,537 Cr in FY21. On the other hand, revenue from operations also jumped more than 80% You to INR 719 Cr during the year ended March 2022. 

This is largely in line with the situation for the overall edtech ecosystem. Other major players in the space, especially BYJU’S, are also plagued by various problems. This has resulted in 22 Indian edtech startups laying off nearly 10,000 employees since last year, as per Inc42’s Layoff Tracker.