Milestone · Education & Skilling

Unacademy announces ₹50 Cr ESOP buyback

By Startup Enthusiast · 27 February 2026

What they do

Unacademy is an online learning platform with over 10 crore learners

It announced a ₹50 Cr ESOP buyback programme for current and former employees

The company is also shifting offline centres to a franchise model to cut costs

Unacademy announced a ₹50 Cr ESOP buyback programme.
8 employees are expected to receive over ₹1 Cr each from the buyback.
17 employees are expected to receive over ₹50 Lakh each.
38 employees are expected to receive over ₹10 Lakh each.
Unacademy offered former employees a one-time 30-day window to exercise vested stock options.
The company is shifting from company-run offline learning centres to a franchise-based model to reduce costs.
Acquisition talks between Unacademy and upGrad were called off due to a valuation disagreement.

The ESOP buyback aims to reward and retain employees.
The franchise model shift is intended to improve unit economics.
The failed acquisition talks with upGrad highlight valuation challenges in the edtech sector.

Unacademy is India's largest learning platform.
It has over 10 crore learners and covers 200+ exams across 60+ exam categories.
The platform offers 1.5k+ daily live classes and has 1M+ video lessons.
It has 14k+ educators and over 3.2B minutes watched.
The company operates in the online education space, competing with other edtech firms.

Unacademy plans to continue its franchise-based offline centre model to reduce costs.
The company aims to improve unit economics through this shift.