Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal. Photo credit: TEDxJUIT, under Creative Commons license

Japanese technology conglomerate SoftBank is preparing a deal to lead $150 million in new funding for Indian ed-tech startup Unacademy, according to a report from The Economic Times. According to the Times, the new funding will value Unacademy, a five-year-old company, at $1.3 billion. Already, Unacademy is known to have raised about $200 million in funding. The company has recorded strong growth over the past year as the coronavirus pandemic has largely driven up demand for online education services. It claims to have 200,000 subscribers now, compared to 90,000 in February.

Before now, Unacademy’s last funding round was a $110 million investment led by social media giant Facebook and General Atlantic, a US-based private equity firm. The surge in online education services has led to a general uptick in ed-tech investments in India. Byju’s, the country’s biggest ed-tech company, is fresh off hundreds of millions in funding from a group of investors and is even in talks to raise $400 million more from venture capital firm DST Global.

SoftBank’s reported investment in Unacademy is likely to come from its Vision Fund.