Edtech start-up Unacademy has urged its employees to buckle up and focus on profitability. In an email written to the employees, the company’s Co-Founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal said they must push together to survive these tough times.
The mail starts off by saying, “We flourished in an environment where resources and capital was abundant. There were times in 2018-19 when we were finding it difficult to raise money but the company wasn’t impacted because as always we had 30 months of runaway and then after 18 rejections we raised our series D round.”
Explaining the current situation, it adds, “Winter is here. Tech stocks globally are crashing and burning due to tighter monetary policies, and rising interest rates. We are looking at a time where funding will dry up for at least 12-18 months. Some people are predicting that this might last 24 months. We must adapt.”
He further stated the measures the company has taken to ensure profitability and said they have reduced their marketing budget. “We have significantly reduced our Brand Marketing Budget. We will focus on organic growth channels instead,” stated Munjal.
He added that funding will dry up for “at least 12-18 months. Some people are predicting that this might last 24 months. We must adapt. This is a test for all of us. We must learn to work under constraint. We must focus on Profitability at all Costs.”
Along with other measures, the email also states that all incentives for educators that are not linked to revenue have been removed or are in the process of being removed. Along with these, he added that “Unacademy centres should be profitable in FY’23. Travel only if it is absolutely needed. Meetings that save travel cost and that can happen on Zoom should happen on Zoom.”
Munjal also said that their businesses like Relevel and Graphy which are in a blitzscaling mode should be extremely careful about burn and reduce it significantly.
It must be noted that the company had recently launched an IPL brand anthem, titled ‘Focus’. The film features former Team India cricketer and captain MS Dhoni and incorporates memorable match moments from IPL 2022.
Apart from this, the brand is also one of the official sponsors of IPL 2022, among other start-ups like Dream11, Upstox and Cred.