Unacademy is shutting down its K-12 business

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Editor's note: The K-12 segment—edtech terminology for kindergarten through the 12th grade—has claimed its latest victim. And it is a big one. Unacademy, India’s second-largest edtech company with a valuation of $3.4 billion, is shutting down its K-12 business with immediate effect, according to three people in the know. “They stopped new sales in the K-12 segment from 1 March. Organic sales will continue for 90 days, starting 1 March and then they will shut down completely,” says one person, requesting anonymity. “All the people in the segment are being moved to different verticals.”  A second person confirms this. “Just six months ago, they were hiring many people in the vertical. The focus was to spend big in K-12 and go head-to-head with Byju’s and Vedantu,” he says, also requesting anonymity. “But those hirings have stopped. The focus has now shifted to Relevel. People in the K-12 vertical are being moved around. A winding down looks imminent.” “His hypothesis was different from the norm,” says a third person, also asking not to be named, referring to Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal. “He kept …