Umesh Dhande, the founder and a director at GATE Academy, will join Unacademy as its vice president, academics, GATE and ESE, the company said.
The entity is different from The Gate Academy, which fellow unicorn upGrad acquired in November 2020.
Unacademy declined to share additional details about the deal.
The edtech unicorn on Monday also announced the launched 50 new education channels, to increase access for millions of learners. The newly launched YouTube channels will help Unacademy foray into newer learning concepts such as direct and indirect taxes, apart from building on existing categories, the company said during the first edition of its flagship event ‘Unacademy One’ in Bengaluru.
Some of the channels include – QBank and Life after IIT for Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) preparation; National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) preparation channels NEET ki Neev, as well as learning platform for Indian Administrative Service (IAS) competitive test prep aspirants, IAS Icons.
Discover the stories of your interest
These channels will also cover preparation for other competitive examinations including bank, staff selection commission and defence. According to Unacademy, each channel will have the best educators, curating and creating high quality content for learners and aspirants pan-India.
“With the announcement of launching 50 unique channels, we are strengthening our commitment towards democratizing education and presenting a strong content strategy for learners who are seeking knowledge in unique and exciting ways,” said Vivek Sinha, chief operating officer, Unacademy, in a statement on Monday.
The company said it will be soon launch Unacademy Compete, a platform that will allow learners to compete with each other. The launch comes at a time when late-stage startups in India are facing a funding winter. In a note to employees in May, Unacademy cofounder and chief executive Gaurav Munjal said cost-cutting would be the company’s key focus moving forward.
Munjal had also told employees that “winter is here” and that funding would remain scarce for at least the next 12-18 months.
ET was the first to report on April 7 that the company had
fired around 1,000 employees, including on-roll and contractual staff. These included employees at Unacademy group firm PrepLadder, which it acquired in 2020. The group comprises Unacademy, PrepLadder, CodeChef, Graphy and Relevel.
Earlier this month, Karan Shroff, chief marketing officer at the edtech firm who was elevated to Partner last September,
announced his departure from the company.
