Edtech platform Unacademy has entered into a unicorn club as the company has raised a $150 MN by Japan’s SoftBank, tripling its valuation to $1.45 BN in less than six months.

Apart from SoftBank, which invested from its Vision Fund 2, existing investors General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, Nexus Venture Partners, Facebook, and Blume Ventures also participated in the round.

“Our goal always has been to democratize knowledge and make it more affordable and accessible by getting the best experts of the world to help everyone achieve their goals," tweeted Munjal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer.

The Bengaluru-based startup, which was recently named the official partner for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the next three seasons, had raised money at a valuation of $510 MN in February from Facebook, General Atlantic, and Sequoia. Unacademy is now India’s second-most valued edtech startup after Byju’s, which is valued at $10.5 BN. Unacademy plans to utilize the funds to launch new products and grow the organization.

This also marks SoftBank’s first India investment since December, when it invested about $275 MN in eyewear retailer Lenskart. It is also SoftBank’s first bet in India’s edtech space, coming at a time the covid-19 pandemic fuels online learning worldwide.

“India needs to innovate. We need to build great products, iconic global products and so, with Unacademy becoming a unicorn, I feel more responsibility. I want to make Unacademy the largest consumer internet company from India that will be in the edtech space and not e-commerce," Munjal said over a Zoom call.

Unacademy claims to have 30 million registered users, 350,000 paying subscribers and over 18,000 registered educators. The company said that in the past three months, paid subscriber base and average daily watch time across its platforms has doubled.

Unacademy began as a YouTube channel of co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal back in 2010 and since then the firm has grown both organically and inorganically. Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini, are the other two co-founders of Unacademy.

Earlier in February, the firm had raised $110 MN from its investors and in July it had announced the acquisition of PrepLadder and Mastree, having taken over platforms such as Kreatryx, Wifistudy and Codechef.