Edtech major Unacademy acquires majority stake in TapChief

Edtech major Unacademy on Tuesday announced acquisition of majority stake in professional networking platform TapChief.

As part of the deal, Unacademy will acquire a majority stake in TapChief, and enable the exit of all existing investors, a statement said.

Unacademy said post the acquisition, TapChief will join the Unacademy Group with a valuation of Rs 100 crore. It, however, did not provide details about the quantum of stake acquired, the investors exiting and money invested by Unacademy.

TapChief leverages a host of technology solutions to empower professionals to interact and learn from experts, work with businesses from across the world, and aggregate their personal brand online. It has more than 1.5 lakh registered professionals, who use the platform to collaborate with a number of experts from their chosen domains and take up short-term professional projects.

Founded in 2016 by Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna, and Arjun Krishna, TapChief also caters to over 150 enterprise customers across sectors such as education, FMCG, e-commerce and enterprise SaaS among others.

In the past, the company has raised funding from Blume Ventures, Cred founder Kunal Shah, former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari, Paytm, Aprameya Radhakrishna (TaxiForSure), 500 Startups and others.

"Our endeavour at Unacademy has always been to democratise education and make learning accessible and affordable for everyone. TapChief shares a similar ethos in a different space, as evident from the open community of professionals and learners they've created," Unacademy Group co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said.

Unacademy Group consists of Unacademy, PrepLadder, Mastree, CodeChef, and Graphy. The company is backed by investors like Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Facebook, General Atlantic, Sequoia India, SAIF Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, Steadview Capital, and Blume Ventures.

Shashank Murali, co-founder and CEO of TapChief, said the company's mission has been to empower the modern Indian professional with access to a wide array of opportunities that enhance their career and growth.

"We are excited to learn from the Unacademy team and carry forward our mission at a greater scale and fervour as part of the Unacademy Group,” he added.