On Monday, learning platform Unacademy acquired Rheo TV, a platform that helps professional game streamers livestream their gameplay and monetize their feeds.
The platform has a user base of more than 5 million users and over 10,000 live streamers.
As part of the acquisition, the two-year-old Rheo TV will be fully acquired by Unacademy, and the platform’s existing investors, Lightspeed India Partners, Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, AET Fund, Phanindra Sama, founder and former CEO (RedBus), and Mahesh Narayanan, ex-Country Head of Google Mobile will exit fully, according to a press release by the company.
The online education sector has grown by leaps and bounds ever since the pandemic took over and disrupted activities around the globe, prompting schools and colleges to close and forcing students to go online.
This has resulted in a boom for platforms like Byju’s, which has become the most valued unicorn start-up in the country. Byju’s has been on an acquisition spree ever since, gobbling up names like Great learning, Toppr, Epic, Aakash Institute, WhiteHat Jr., and others, this year.
Unacademy, founded by Gaurav Munjal, Hemesh Singh, and Roman Saini, has been a major competitor for Byju’s, and thus, it has been active in acquisitions as well. It had acquired online coaching institute Handa Ka Funda in March and the networking platform TapChief in February. The start-up has emerged as one of the leading names in online education and has evolved from a YouTube channel to one of the largest learning platforms in India over the course of six years. It boasts a network of more than 50, 00 registered educators and over 62 million learners across 5,000 cities, offering courses and classes in 14 Indian languages. Unacademy includes among its investors prominent names such as Tiger Global, Dragoneer Investment Group, SoftBank VF2, Facebook, General Atlantic, and Sequoia India.
Rheo TV founders Saksham Keshri and Prakash Kumar are set to join Relevel as co-founders. Relevel is a subsidiary of Unacademy group (comprising of Unacademy itself, PrepLadder, CodeChef, Graphy, and Relevel)) which aims to make things easier for those seeking jobs by enabling them to showcase their skills through tests, and securing employment at some of the top companies in the country.
