Shashank Murali is an Indian entrepreneur and self-taught engineer best known as the co-founder and chief executive of TapChief, a Bangalore startup that helped professionals win short-term consulting projects. He sold his first company while still an undergraduate, built TapChief into a venture-backed future-of-work platform, led Relevel after Unacademy acquired it, and is now building the language-learning app Airlearn. Across each chapter his focus has stayed on the same theme: changing how people learn skills and find work.
From BITS Pilani to a first exit
Murali studied mathematics at BITS Pilani, one of India's best-known engineering schools, and taught himself to code along the way, working as an Android developer on apps including SignEasy. His interest was less in the academics than in shipping products, and he started building companies before he graduated.
While still in college he co-founded Edvice, an online tutoring platform, with his batchmates, and sold it to the United States edtech company HashLearn. The exit made Murali and his co-founders, by the school's account, the first undergraduates in fifty years of BITS Pilani history to sell a company while still students, an early signal of the operator instinct that would define his later ventures.
Building TapChief
In 2016, straight out of college, Murali founded TapChief with co-founders Binay Krishna Shivam and Arjun Krishna Vasisht. The company began as a way to connect businesses with vetted experts for consulting projects and grew into a broader future-of-work platform where professionals could learn, network, and win short-term work without committing to a full-time job. As co-founder he led product, growth, and team building.
TapChief drew early venture backing, including a $1.5 million round from Blume Ventures, and became one of the more closely watched Indian startups working on the gig and expert-marketplace model. Murali's thesis was that flexible, project-based work would become a larger share of how skilled professionals built their careers.
Unacademy, Relevel, and Airlearn
In 2021 the Unacademy Group, the SoftBank-backed education company, acquired TapChief. Murali moved over with the company and took the helm of Relevel, Unacademy's hiring and skilling platform built to connect job seekers with employers through standardized assessments, serving as its chief executive.
He has since moved on to a new venture, building Airlearn, a mobile app for learning languages, alongside Unacademy founder Gaurav Munjal. The through-line from tutoring to expert marketplaces to skilling to language learning is consistent: each company has been an attempt to lower the barrier between people and the skills or work they are after.
Approach and ideas
Murali is, by background, a builder who codes, and he has tended to lead on product and growth rather than from a purely managerial seat. He has spoken publicly about student entrepreneurship and the realities of building in India, including in interviews and podcasts on what worked, what did not, and what he would do differently.
His own summary of how he operates is simple and people-first. "Great teams build great ideas," he has said, a line that reflects a career spent recruiting co-founders and small teams to chase large shifts in how work and learning happen.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Shashank Murali?
Shashank Murali is an Indian entrepreneur and self-taught engineer, best known as the co-founder and chief executive of the Bangalore future-of-work startup TapChief. He later led Relevel at Unacademy and is now building the language-learning app Airlearn.
What is TapChief?
TapChief is a future-of-work platform Murali co-founded in 2016 that connected businesses with experts for consulting projects and let professionals learn, network, and win short-term work. It raised venture funding including a $1.5 million round from Blume Ventures.
What happened to TapChief?
In 2021 TapChief was acquired by the Unacademy Group, the SoftBank-backed education company. Murali then led Relevel, Unacademy's hiring and skilling platform, as its chief executive.
What is Shashank Murali building now?
He is building Airlearn, a mobile language-learning app, alongside Unacademy founder Gaurav Munjal.
What is Shashank Murali's background?
He studied mathematics at BITS Pilani and taught himself to code, working as an Android developer. He co-founded the tutoring startup Edvice in college and sold it to HashLearn before founding TapChief.