BENGALURU: Japanese tech investment giant, SoftBank is likely to acquire a 14.7 per cent stake in the entrance test preparation platform — Unacademy. The deal, which marks its first investment bet in India this year, will close in next few weeks and is being pegged at $150 million (Rs 530 crore), according to multiple sources.
The regulatory filings sourced from paper.vc by this publication showed that Unacademy has sought approval from its existing shareholders to issue a new class of Series F preference share in addition to 10 lakh equity shares.
It further revealed that SoftBank is likely to acquire the shares from some existing investors, resulting in their exit from the company. The proposed deal will also bring Unacademy under the unicorn club of India with a valuation of $1.2 billion. Currently, Bengaluru headquartered-Byjus is the only edtech firm in this club with a valuation of over $10 billion.
The onset of Covid-19 pandemic has led to a rush of investments in the edtech sector in India with schools and colleges shut throughout the country. Unacademy raised$ 103.5 million (Rs 776 crore) in a Series E round led by PE firm, General Atlantic and social media giant, Facebook and existing investor, Sequoia Capital at a valuation of $510 million earlier this year.
With a surge in userbase and subscriptions, the equity share price of Unacademy according to the company financials, have soared from Rs 49,068 in December, 2019 to Rs 58,790 in May, 2020.If the SoftBank’s Unacademy investments follows its other high-stakes funding in the portfolio companies, some of the early investors of Unacademy will walk away with $50-70 million.
The early investors in the edtech platform include Flipkart co-founders, Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal , Flipkart CEO, Kalyan Krishnamurthy aand Paytm CEO, Viay Shekhar Sharma among others. Last month, Unacademy announced acquisition of PrepLadder for $ 50 million.