New Delhi-based WaterBridge Ventures has exited the Bengaluru-based edtech startup Unacademy in a secondary sale. WaterBridge’s stake was bought by Unacademy’s existing investors Sequoia Capital, SAIF Partners, and Nexus Venture Partners.
The news comes soon after the startup raised around ₹144 crores in series C funding led by its three marquee investors, valuing the startup at around $100 million.
Talking about the exit, Manish Kheterpal, managing partner at WaterBridge Ventures, said, “Given Unacademy was the first investment from the fund, and an opportunity to lock-in attractive returns, we decided to exit through a secondary sale. We’re confident that Unacademy’s stellar journey of growth will continue with highly supportive investors such as Sequoia, SAIF and Nexus.”
The details of the exit deal remain undisclosed. While the fund claims to have earned a handsome internal return of 150% and five times its investment in the startups.
There has been a rise in secondary transactions in the Indian startups’ ecosystem recently, with TR Capital and Steadview Capital striking a secondary deal in Lenskart, last month.
Even Temasek Holdings acquired a secondary stake in Ola worth ₹1,545 crores, last month.
Founded by Manish Kheterpal and Sarbvir Singh in 2016, WaterBridge Ventures is an early-stage venture capital fund that invests in startups with strong founders, leading technology disruption across different sectors.
WaterBridge Ventures had invested $1 million in Unacademy, marking its first investment from its maiden fund, the $30 million WaterBridge Ventures Fund-I.
Other investments made by the fund include Delhi-based used cars marketplace BlueJack, Gurugram-based Magicpin, healthtech startup LetsMD, edtech startup Doubtnut, among others.
Unacademy provides an online learning platform that connects the educators create courses for students. The platform claims to have over 50,000 online lessons along with 1.3 million registered users taught by around 4,000 educators.