Gaurav Munjal moves to executive chairman role at Unacademy Akhilendra Kumar to become CEO

New Delhi, Nov 11 (PTI) Unacademy co-founder Gaurav Munjal on Wednesday said he is moving from the role of CEO to executive chairman of the edtech firm, which was acquired by upGrad in September, with Akhilendra Kumar set to take over as chief executive officer.

     In a post on LinkedIn, Munjal said he would remain fully involved in operations every day, work alongside Kumar and help with the upGrad IPO.

     "To be clear, I'm not going anywhere…Akhilendra is one of the sharpest operators I know, and I'm proud to have him lead us into this next chapter," he wrote.

     Kumar, currently the company's Chief Business Officer, joined Unacademy as AVP-Business in January 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before this, he held roles at Oyo and Exide Industries.

     The change comes a little over two months after upGrad completed its acquisition of Unacademy for over USD 200 million, about 94 per cent below the edtech firm's peak valuation of USD 3.44 billion in 2021.

     Unacademy had reached that valuation after raising USD 440 million in 2021 from investors including Temasek, General Atlantic and Softbank Vision Fund.

     The two companies had signed a term sheet in March for upGrad to acquire Unacademy in an all-stock, 100 per cent share swap deal. At the time, Munjal said he would stay on as co-founder and CEO of Unacademy.

     The Competition Commission of India (CCI) cleared upGrad's proposed acquisition of a stake in Sorting Hat Technologies, Unacademy's parent company, and the merger of the two entities in July.

     When the deal closed, Munjal said Unacademy had a topline of around Rs 400 crore and Rs 900 crore in the bank, with most of its businesses profitable or close to it. He said the company could have carried on independently but chose to combine with upGrad after talks with founder Ronnie Screwvala.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)