EdTech startup Unacademy Will use Celebrities to teach online courses

Gaurav Munjal launched Unacademy as a YouTube channel in 2010. It was officially registered as an edtech startup after five years in Bengaluru. The site provides free and subscription-based study materials for a variety of professional and educational admission tests in the form of live classes.

The Unacademy app and website provide test preparation materials for a variety of exams, including IIT-JEE, UPSC, SSC, NEET, and GATE. Relevel, a new gamified platform that allows job seekers to exhibit their skills and get hired at some of India's leading businesses, was launched in 2021. Graphy, the company's third division, enabling content creators to increase their audiences, monetize their expertise, and deliver live cohort-based courses.

As Unacademy is rapidly expanding its footprint in new areas and looking for international expansion, it is all set to venture into celebrity-taught extracurricular courses under the name ‘Unacademy Icons’ likely to launch in 2022. It will offer hobby-based courses like arts and music etc.

While Unacademy Icons appears to be quite similar to Graphy, the main distinction is that Graphy is a learning management system (LMS) that allows content creators to generate, promote, and offer their own content.

If 'Icons' is anything like celebrity-taught hobby-focused edtech, the MasterClass-style firm would be both, a maker and a curator of courses from well-known industry experts, rather than simply any content provider. It would be more than just a launcher.

If Unacademy releases celebrity-taught courses, Icons could be the push that companies need to break beyond India's textbook and school-approved-teacher learning methods.