SoftBank-backed Unacademy’s net loss jumped 85% from Rs 1,537 crore in FY21 to Rs 2,848 crore in FY22, dragged by an increase in the company’s non-cash ESOP expenses, which came in at Rs 1,235 crore from Rs 481 crore, Moneycontrol reported on Saturday. Further, the edtech startup’s operating revenue jumped 80% to Rs 719 crore from Rs 398 crore a year earlier.
The deep losses come despite Covid proving to be beneficial for edtech companies as students remained indoors and learnt online. The performance, however, comes on the back of increasing expenses. Unacademy’s total expenses grew to Rs 3,703 crore in FY22 from Rs 2,030 crore a year earlier. Further, the Bengaluru-based unicorn reported an earnings before income, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (Ebitda) loss of Rs 2,742 crore for the year against Rs 1,488 crore in FY21.
“We spent a lot in FY22 to gain market share. (The cash) Burn is under control now though. We have massively fixed our unit economics in the last few months,” Gaurav Munjal, co-founder and chief executive officer, Unacademy, said on Twitter on Saturday.
Unacademy has reportedly reduced its burn to Rs 50-60 crore from Rs 200 crore a month earlier. Unacademy was not alone in reporting deep losses. Last month, the world’s most valuable edtech startup, BYJU’s had also reported that its losses shot up to Rs 4,588 crore in FY21 from Rs 231.69 in FY20 on the back of revenues which increased marginally, 3.32%, to 2,428.39 crore in FY21. BYJU’s filed its FY21 results after more than 17 months of delay and was yet to finalise its FY22 results.
To control expenses, new-age companies have resorted to laying off people. Overall, startups have laid off over 11,000 employees, of which over 6,000 were from edtech startups like Unacademy and Vendantu only. BYJU’s earlier said it would “rationalise” its operations and sack about 2,500 people.
The Gaurav Munjal-led company also saw its total income surge to Rs 845 crore in FY22 from Rs 464 crore a year earlier, supported by a 2X increase in other income to Rs 125 crore.
Also Read: Learner’s Park; Simarpreet Singh of JIS Group on dynamics of education system in India