Gaurav Munjal

Timeline

1. 2015Starts a YouTube channel with short tutorials while studying engineering in Mumbai. The channel becomes the seed of Unacademy.Recorded in the company history on Wikipedia.^[2]
2. 2015In December he brings in Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini and launches the Unacademy app for free interactive lessons.The three are named as co-founders.^[2]
3. 2018 to 2021Unacademy acquires WiFiStudy, Kreatryx, CodeChef, PrepLadder, Mastree, Coursavy, TapChief, Rheo TV and Swiflearn, and launches the Unacademy Plus subscription.The acquisition list is in the company history.^[2]
4. 2021Unacademy raises $440 million in a Series H led by Temasek at a valuation of $3.44 billion.The peak valuation against which the later sale is measured.^[3]
5. 2021In an interview he says almost every metric is six to seven times higher than the year before and that the company is aiming to be the number one brand in education.Published by Forbes India in April 2021.^[4]
6. 2022 to 2025The funding winter arrives. Unacademy lays off staff, cuts cash burn, scales back verticals and opens offline coaching centres.Described in the coverage of the sale.^[3]
7. 2026upGrad signs a term sheet in March, wins Competition Commission approval on 7 July and completes its all-stock acquisition of Unacademy on 1 September. Munjal stays on as chief executive.The deal was worth a little over $200 million, about Rs 1,955 crore.^[3]
8. 2026In October he and Saini are reported to be raising Longshot Capital, a Rs 700 crore fund for AI and deeptech. Saini runs it full-time and Munjal is involved part-time.First reported by The Economic Times and followed by Indian Startup News.^[1]^[3]

Who Gaurav Munjal is

Gaurav Munjal is an Indian entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and chief executive of Unacademy, an edtech platform that began as a YouTube channel in 2015 and was sold to upGrad in 2026. He is also, with his co-founder Roman Saini, one of the more active angel investors in Indian startups, and the two are now raising a venture fund together.^[2][3]

His public story has an unusual arc. Most founders of his generation either sold early or held on through the funding winter and disappeared from view. Munjal did neither. Unacademy reached a valuation of $3.44 billion in 2021, lost more than 90 per cent of that value before the sale, and he remained chief executive through the layoffs, the restructuring and the eventual all-stock deal with upGrad.^[3]

The record of his early life is thin. Wikipedia notes that he was an engineering student in Mumbai when he started the YouTube channel that became Unacademy, and that he brought in Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini in December 2015. No date of birth, birthplace, school or family detail is confirmed by the sources used for this entry, and none has been supplied here.^[2]

The YouTube channel that became Unacademy

Unacademy started as a YouTube channel. Munjal, then an engineering student in Mumbai, uploaded a short video tutorial on computer graphics to help his peers prepare for semester exams. The format was simple and free, and it found an audience among students who wanted an explanation rather than a textbook.^[2]

In December 2015 he brought in two friends, Hemesh Singh and Roman Saini, and turned the channel into an app for free interactive lessons. The timing was fortunate. Indian smartphone data was cheap, YouTube was the default classroom for exam aspirants, and the paid coaching industry was expensive enough that a free alternative had obvious appeal.^[2]

The company that grew out of that channel was built on educators rather than on content libraries. Unacademy signed teachers, streamed live classes and let them build followings, which made the platform a stage rather than a textbook. That model carried it through the pandemic, when schools and coaching centres closed and online classes became the only option.^[2][4]

Building the platform and the 2021 peak

Between 2018 and 2021 Unacademy bought its way into several exam categories. It acquired WiFiStudy for $10 million in 2018, then Kreatryx for GATE and ESE preparation, CodeChef for programming, PrepLadder for postgraduate medical entrance, Mastree, and Coursavy for UPSC preparation. In 2021 it added TapChief, Rheo TV and Swiflearn.^[2]

The subscription business, Unacademy Plus, launched in 2019 and reported an annual run rate of $30 million in the same year. The company raised nearly $87 million in 2019 and became the second Indian company to receive a direct investment from Facebook. By 2021 it had raised $860 million and was valued at $3.44 billion.^[2]

In April 2021 Munjal told Forbes India that almost every metric, revenue, users and growth, was six to seven times higher than the year before, and that Unacademy had touched an annual revenue run rate of around $140 million for the 2020-21 financial year. He said the company hoped to become the number one brand in education within six months, which was a direct challenge to Byju's.^[4]

That interview is the clearest statement of his ambitions at the peak. It is also a period piece. The valuation, the acquisition spree and the revenue run rate were all built on the assumption that Indian edtech would keep growing at pandemic speed, and it did not.^[2][3]

The long reset

The funding winter changed the company. Unacademy suspended contracts with educators in July 2022 to cut costs, and the company was criticised that year for laying off both teachers and full time staff. It cut cash burn, scaled back verticals and, like its rivals, moved into offline coaching centres, opening its first in Kota in 2022 and following with Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.^[2]

Munjal's public position during those years was that the company would grow into its cost base rather than shrink to survive. The record shows both. Unacademy kept operating, kept its brand and kept its chief executive, but it also went through repeated rounds of cuts and a strategic retreat from some of the categories it had bought.^[2][3]

The criticism of the period was not only financial. In August 2023 the company dismissed a teacher, Karan Sangwan, after a video in which he urged students not to vote for politicians who focused on changing names. Saini defended the dismissal by saying the classroom was not a place for personal opinions. The episode became a political argument about edtech and speech, and it attached to the company rather than to Munjal personally.^[2]

Selling to upGrad

The sale took nearly a year. upGrad walked away in January 2026 after the two sides failed to agree on a valuation for an earlier proposal of about $300 million. Talks resumed in March with a term sheet for a 100 per cent share swap, and the Competition Commission of India approved the combination on 7 July. The deal closed on 1 September.^[3]

The price was a little over $200 million, reported at about Rs 1,955 crore, in an all-stock transaction. Against the $3.44 billion valuation of 2021, that is a fall of more than 90 per cent. Munjal stayed as chief executive, and upGrad reported gross revenue of Rs 2,070 crore in the 2025-26 financial year, up 7 per cent.^[3]

For Munjal the sale was both an exit and a continuation. He did not leave the company he founded, but the company is no longer independent, and its biggest shareholder is now a rival that was valued far below it at Unacademy's peak. In interviews around the deal he described the journey as difficult, which is about as much as a chief executive can say while staying in the job.^[3]

The angel portfolio

Munjal and Saini have been writing angel cheques for more than a decade. Between them they have put over Rs 25 crore into more than 200 companies, according to the reporting on Longshot Capital. The portfolio includes Pine Labs, Dhan, Ultrahuman, Snabbit, Swish, STAGE, Seekho and Third Wave Coffee.^[1][3]

That list is broad. It covers payments, investing, wearables, quick commerce, live entertainment, upskilling and coffee, which is what a founder-led angel portfolio usually looks like: deals that arrive through other founders rather than through a thesis. The most recent disclosed cheque, in August 2026, was in Superleap, an AI-native customer relationship platform.^[1][3]

The angel record is the argument for the fund. A venture manager with no track record has to sell a strategy. Munjal and Saini can point to two hundred companies and say that they have already been doing the work, deal by deal, with their own money.^[3]

Longshot Capital

Longshot Capital is registered as a Category II alternative investment fund with a target of Rs 700 crore. It has commitments of around Rs 250 crore to Rs 300 crore, roughly 36 to 43 per cent of the target, and is aiming for a first close in January 2027. Both founders declined to comment when The Economic Times reported the plan.^[1][3]

The mandate is narrow. The fund will invest in 25 to 28 companies at seed and pre-Series A, with initial cheques of $500,000 to $1.5 million and a target ownership of 8 to 12 per cent. It will look at AI-led businesses and deeptech segments such as manufacturing, space, defence and robotics. Consumer brands and retail are explicitly out of scope.^[1][3]

The structure is built for a long build cycle. Capital will be deployed over three years, the fund will live for 10 to 11 years, and it will invest in India-based startups as well as companies founded by people of Indian origin abroad. Prospective investors include startup founders, family offices and overseas institutions.^[1][3]

Why a deeptech fund, and why now

The timing follows the market. Indian AI startups raised $438 million across 28 deals in the third quarter of 2026, up 265 per cent year on year, and deeptech startups raised $290 million across 28 deals in the same period, up 176 per cent, according to figures cited in the coverage. Limited partners are looking for managers with a thesis in both.^[1]

Munjal has also argued publicly that Indian deeptech investors are less risk averse than their reputation suggests. In October 2026 he pushed back on X against that criticism, pointing to Astrobase, Airbound and Sarvam AI as companies that had raised large rounds quickly, and saying that consumer technology companies which listed in recent years, including Groww, Eternal and Meesho, had delivered spectacular outcomes.^[3]

The fund is also a way to keep deploying after the exit. A founder who has sold his company and stayed on as chief executive has money and a network but no obvious next job. Managing other people's capital is the conventional answer, and it is the one Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal took with Titan Capital, which closed a Rs 333 crore winners fund in October 2024.^[3]

The part-time question

Saini will run Longshot Capital full-time. Munjal will be involved part-time alongside his role at Unacademy. That split is common in founder-led funds and it carries a specific risk: limited partners tend to underwrite the full-time partner, while founders often want the better known name in the room.^[1][3]

If Munjal's attention is elsewhere, the fund has to prove that its deal flow comes from the firm rather than from him. The reported investor base reflects the tension. Founder money is easier to raise for a founder-led fund. Institutional money will ask harder questions about who runs the portfolio.^[1]

The first close will be the test. Rs 700 crore is a target, and Indian alternative investment funds routinely announce a target well above what they finally raise. If Longshot closes at the lower end of its reported commitments, it will still be a meaningful first fund, but it will not be the vehicle the announcement describes.^[1][3]

What has not been confirmed

No date of birth, age, birthplace, school, family detail or marital status for Gaurav Munjal is confirmed by the sources used here. Wikipedia records only that he was an engineering student in Mumbai in 2015, without naming the college or the degree. A birth year of 1991 circulates on social media, but no credible outlet in this entry's sources states it, so it is not repeated as fact.^[2]

His personal shareholding in Unacademy, the value of his stake after the upGrad swap and his personal net worth are not public. The Rs 25 crore angel figure is the amount he and Saini invested together, not Munjal's own contribution.^[1][3]

On Longshot Capital, the fund has not held a first close, the final size is unknown and the names of the limited partners have not been disclosed. The reported commitments of Rs 250 crore to Rs 300 crore come from The Economic Times by way of Indian Startup News, and the founders declined to comment. Whether Munjal's part-time role becomes full-time after the upGrad integration is also unresolved.^[1][3]