Unacademy looks at omni-channel retail, launches physical stores

At present, Unacademy is looking to launch four stores, which will act as an experience zone for students and parents to understand its offerings and various subscription models. The stores will focus on new users who are looking to take up Unacademy courses. Further, existing Unacademy users can also come and meet their teachers at these stores.

The Unacademy store will host a counselling area for learners; an in-house library for reading sources, as well as classrooms that will host its top educators. However, the focus continues to be on omnichannel retail and not on hybrid learning.

“We believe online education is the future. However, we think people need awareness on why online will work. It is not so much about hybrid learning but more about an omnichannel presence. We have no plans of entering a hybrid-learning model yet,” said Gaurav Munjal, chief executive officer and cofounder, Unacademy Group.

“The idea of having top educators host sessions at these stores is to ensure that learners also do get a connect. Usually, sessions from some of these top educators on Unacademy is attended by 10,000 students,” added Munjal.

Unacademy has already opened up its first experience store in New Delhi. It plans to open three new stores in Kota, Jaipur and Lucknow, over the next six weeks.

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Arch rival, Byju’s also recently announced its aggressive
plans to double down on its offline play through the launch of ‘Byju’s Tuition Centre’. Over the course of last year, the company has launched 80 offline centres across 23 cities and is looking to scale that up to 500 centres across 200 cities this year.

Unlike Unacademy, Byju’s offline foray is focused on hybrid-learning. It conceptualised its offline foray last year
after the acquisition of tutorial chain Aakash Education Services for an estimated cash-and-stock deal worth $950 million.

Munjal also said that Unacademy plans to file for an initial public offering in the coming years, and is currently focussing on turning its core test prep business profitable over the next 12 months.

He declined to comment on overall investments and additional plans, the company will be undertaking to grow its offline play. Earlier in August, last year, Unacademy
was valued at $3.44 billion after the company raised $440 million in a round led by Temasek.