Gaurav Munjal: Unacademy cash burn down to Rs 1.9 crore, revenue at Rs 130 crore in May: Gaurav Munjal

The company is also looking to turn cash flow positive this month, he added.

“(Higher cash burn) Used to be the case a few months ago. Last month our cash burn was (Rs) 1.9 crore with (Rs) 130 crores of revenue. And this month we will be cash flow positive. Our FY’24 numbers are going to be awesome. This year is going to be the best year for Unacademy so far,” Munjal wrote on microblogging website Twitter.

These claims come after Munjal said in November last year that the company had brought down its monthly burn down to $7 million (roughly Rs 57.4 crore) from $20 million previously. Last month, he indicated in a tweet that the company’s burn was below $5 million.

“Offline has contributed but online business is also doing well. Some de-growth but unit economics has improved a lot,” said Munjal replying to a user on Twitter on Wednesday evening.

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Earlier this year, in an internal memo to employees, Munjal had claimed that the company is looking to hit EBITDA-level (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) profitability by April this year, ET had reported. Unacademy’s push to curtail its burn comes at a time when pandemic-induced tailwinds towards online learning have largely disappeared, with the sector struggling to show growth.

Additionally, a worsening global macroeconomic environment has come in as a double whammy for several Indian edtechs as funding taps dry and firms move towards increasing their runways.

Unacademy, too, took a hit and announced layoffs affecting 12% of its workforce as recently as March, this year. This came after Munjal had himself reassured staff that the company won’t be undertaking any further retrenchment exercises.

The company seems to have laid off at least 1,400 employees, across multiple layoff exercises, starting last year.

Its peers in the edtech space, including Byju’s, Vedantu and several others, have also announced job cuts. Indian startups laid off about 9,400 employees in the January to March period this year, according to recruitment firm Careernet.

This year, the company had cancelled appraisals for the financial year ended March 2023 to focus on turning profitable, amid an overall tightening in funding and a slump in demand for online education.

“By the end of the year we will have 116 months of runway… There is some chatter on the floors about Unacademy not doing well. Let me correct that. This will be the best year for Unacademy since we started the company in 2015,” Munjal told employees in an internal memo earlier this year.

Unacademy’s revenue was Rs 719 crore during the financial year ending March 31, 2022 up from Rs 398 crore a year ago. Losses for the edtech player were at Rs 2,848 crore up from Rs 1,537 crore in FY21.

The company is also looking to turn cash flow positive this month, he added.

“(Higher cash burn) Used to be the case a few months ago. Last month our cash burn was (Rs) 1.9 crore with (Rs) 130 crores of revenue. And this month we will be cash flow positive. Our FY’24 numbers are going to be awesome. This year is going to be the best year for Unacademy so far,” Munjal wrote on microblogging website Twitter.

These claims come after Munjal said in November last year that the company had brought down its monthly burn down to $7 million (roughly Rs 57.4 crore) from $20 million previously. Last month, he indicated in a tweet that the company’s burn was below $5 million.

“Offline has contributed but online business is also doing well. Some de-growth but unit economics has improved a lot,” said Munjal replying to a user on Twitter on Wednesday evening.

Discover the stories of your interest

Earlier this year, in an internal memo to employees, Munjal had claimed that the company is looking to hit EBITDA-level (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) profitability by April this year, ET had reported. Unacademy’s push to curtail its burn comes at a time when pandemic-induced tailwinds towards online learning have largely disappeared, with the sector struggling to show growth.

Additionally, a worsening global macroeconomic environment has come in as a double whammy for several Indian edtechs as funding taps dry and firms move towards increasing their runways.

Unacademy, too, took a hit and announced layoffs affecting 12% of its workforce as recently as March, this year. This came after Munjal had himself reassured staff that the company won’t be undertaking any further retrenchment exercises.

The company seems to have laid off at least 1,400 employees, across multiple layoff exercises, starting last year.

Its peers in the edtech space, including Byju’s, Vedantu and several others, have also announced job cuts. Indian startups laid off about 9,400 employees in the January to March period this year, according to recruitment firm Careernet.

This year, the company had cancelled appraisals for the financial year ended March 2023 to focus on turning profitable, amid an overall tightening in funding and a slump in demand for online education.

“By the end of the year we will have 116 months of runway… There is some chatter on the floors about Unacademy not doing well. Let me correct that. This will be the best year for Unacademy since we started the company in 2015,” Munjal told employees in an internal memo earlier this year.

Unacademy’s revenue was Rs 719 crore during the financial year ending March 31, 2022 up from Rs 398 crore a year ago. Losses for the edtech player were at Rs 2,848 crore up from Rs 1,537 crore in FY21.