After selling Unacademy, Founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini turn VCs with Rs 700 crore fund

Unacademy co-founders Gaurav Munjal and Roman Saini are raising a Rs 700 crore venture capital fund, Longshot Capital, to back early-stage AI and deeptech startups, according to a report by The Economic Times.

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The fund, registered as a Category II alternative investment fund (AIF), has reportedly secured commitments of about Rs 250-300 crore, or roughly 36-43% of its target. It is aiming for a first close in January 2027, though the size and timeline could change as fundraising continues.

The plan comes less than two months after upGrad completed its all-stock acquisition of Unacademy.

What Longshot Capital will invest in

The Bengaluru-based fund plans to back 25-28 startups at the seed and pre-Series A stages, according to the report. Initial cheques will range from $500,000 to $1.5 million, for a target ownership of 8-12% in each company.

Its mandate covers AI-led businesses and deeptech segments such as manufacturing, space, defence and robotics. Consumer brands and retail businesses are not part of the focus.

The fund will deploy its capital over three years and invest in startups based in India as well as companies started by founders of Indian origin abroad. It will have a life of 10-11 years, to accommodate the longer development and commercialisation cycles of deeptech companies.

Its prospective investors reportedly include startup founders, family offices and overseas institutions.

Who will run it

Both co-founders will be general partners. Saini will run Longshot Capital full-time, while Munjal will be involved part-time alongside his role as CEO of Unacademy.

Saini cleared the AIIMS medical entrance exam at 16 and the UPSC civil services exam at 22, and served as an IAS officer in Madhya Pradesh before leaving the service in 2015 to build Unacademy with Munjal and Hemesh Singh.

The fund formalises more than a decade of angel investing by the two. Together they have put over Rs 25 crore into more than 200 angel cheques, in companies including Pine Labs, Dhan, Seekho, Ultrahuman, Snabbit, Swish, STAGE and Third Wave Coffee. In August, they invested in Superleap, an AI-native customer relationship management platform.

On Sunday, Munjal reportedly pushed back on X against criticism that Indian deeptech investors lack risk appetite. He pointed to Astrobase, Airbound and Sarvam AI as startups that had raised large rounds within short periods, and said consumer tech companies that listed in recent years, such as Groww, Eternal and Meesho, had delivered “spectacular outcomes”.

Munjal and Saini join a set of Indian founders who have moved from personal angel investing to managing outside money. Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, who had invested only their own capital through Titan Capital since 2011, closed the Titan Capital Winners Fund at Rs 333 crore in October 2024, after taking in additional commitments through a greenshoe option beyond an initial Rs 200 crore target.

The Unacademy exit

upGrad completed its acquisition of Unacademy on 1 September in an all-stock deal worth a little over $200 million, reportedly about Rs 1,955 crore. That is more than 90% below the $3.44 billion valuation at which Unacademy raised $440 million in a Series H round led by Temasek in August 2021.

The deal took nearly a year to come together. upGrad walked away in January after the two sides failed to agree on a valuation for an earlier proposal of about $300 million. Talks resumed in March with a term sheet for a 100% share swap, and the Competition Commission of India approved the combination on 7 July.

Unacademy began as a YouTube channel and became a formal edtech platform in 2015, focused on preparation for competitive exams. After the pandemic-era boom faded, it went through several rounds of layoffs, cut its cash burn, scaled down verticals and expanded into offline coaching centres before it was sold. upGrad reported gross revenue of Rs 2,070 crore in FY26, up 7%.