Unacademy cofounder Sumit Jain exits ahead of upGrad deal

Bengaluru:

India’s edtech sector is seeing another senior-level exit, with Unacademy cofounder and test-prep chief Sumit Jain stepping away from his operational role at the Bengaluru-based company, ahead of its proposed merger with upGrad.

The move was announced through LinkedIn posts by Jain and Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal on Monday. Munjal said Jain had helped build creator platform Graphy and played a key role in making the company’s offline business profitable.

“Sumit joined us as co-founder in 2020 and since then helped us build Graphy and make Offline profitable,” Munjal wrote in his post. Jain, responding to the message, described the last six years as “something I would never trade for anything else.”

Jain joined Unacademy after the acquisition of his startup OpenTalk and later led Graphy, the creator-focused SaaS platform within the group. In 2023, he was elevated to partner status, which Munjal had then described as equivalent to a cofounder role. Last year, Jain was also appointed CEO of Unacademy’s core test-prep business as the company underwent a broader leadership reshuffle.

His departure comes at a crucial time for Unacademy, which has been restructuring operations amid a prolonged slowdown in India’s edtech market. The company is currently moving towards an acquisition by Ronnie Screwvala-led upGrad in an all-stock transaction that has already reached the Competition Commission of India for approval, according to multiple reports.

Once among India’s most valuable startups with a peak valuation of $3.4 billion during the pandemic-era edtech boom, Unacademy has in recent years narrowed losses, cut costs and sharpened focus on profitability and offline expansion.