To call the exit of Unacademy cofounders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini a second seismic shift in India’s edtech ecosystem — after the BYJU’S downfall, of course — would be no exaggeration.

BYJU’S and Unacademy were spoken of in one breath, but both seem to be facing an uncertain future now.

Amid the reports of the exit of the two cofounders who built the decade-old edtech giant, nobody within the inner circles of Munjal and Saini seems to be surprised.

“Munjal is squarely focussed on Airlearn only for more than a year now, whereas Saini had long back lost interest in taking Unacademy forward,” insiders aware of the developments at Unacademy told Inc42.

Munjal and Saini each hold 3.4% stake in Unacademy, whereas the other cofounder Hemesh Singh, who moved on from Unacademy to an advisory role in 2024, holds 2.2% stake.

Sources claimed that both Munjal and Saini received cash payouts at the time of their exits and that they will have partial stakes in the Unacademy.

Additionally, Shashank Murali, Munjal’s confidante and the TapChief cofounder who sold his startup to Unacademy in 2021 for INR 25 Cr, is also moving on with Munjal to build Airlearm. Murali had taken over operations at Unacademy’s Relevel after the acquisition, but Relevel itself seems to have been shut down as indicated by a dysfunctional website.

Multiple queries sent to Unacademy remained unanswered at the time of publishing this story.

The story will be updated if and when the company responds.

While in the days ahead, the industry will be buzzing with speculation and forecasts on what led to Munjal and Saini’s exits, sources in the know tell us that this has been in the making for almost a year. Munjal is said to have signalled to the board that he can no longer commit to leading Unacademy’s offline tuition centre business which contributes to 40%-50% of the company’s revenues.

Insiders also revealed that Munjal wanted to return to a tech-first edtech model, where Airlearn is the latest bet from the serial entrepreneur.

Munjal has handed over the reins to Sumit Jain, a board member, and founder of Commonfloor. Jain was leading the company’s Graphy app till the transition to the CEO post.

In an internal mail to Unacademy’s employees, Jain said the company operations will be running smoothly and that employees should not listen to the noise around the exits.

Acquisition Talks Fail, Founders Exit

Besides Munjal’s own disinterest in taking Unacademy forward, there have been several other challenges plaguing........

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