Barely two weeks after raising USD 122 million from DST Global, Indian edtech decacorn Byju’s said Tuesday it has raised a new round from American investment firm Silver Lake. Without disclosing the deal size, the company said existing investors Tiger Global, General Atlantic, and Owl Ventures also participated in this funding round.
The check size for the latest round is estimated to be USD 500 million at the valuation of USD 10.8 billion, a Techcrunch report said, citing a source. This year alone, the total investment raised by the world’s most valued edtech startup is over USD 1 billion.
“We are delighted to lead this investment and partner with Byju and his impressive team of education technology pioneers in their mission to help children in India and around the world achieve their true potential,” Greg Mondre, co-CEO of Silver Lake, said in a statement.
It is to be noted that Silver Lake owns over a 2% stake in Jio Platforms, the digital arm of India’s largest company Reliance. The oil-to-telecom conglomerate has been gearing toward rolling out a slew of digital offerings including an online education platform through Jio Platforms.
“We are excited to welcome a strong partner like Silver Lake to the Byju’s family,” Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, Byju’s, said in a statement. “We are fortunate to be in a sector of positive relevance during this crisis…Our classrooms are changing possibly for the first time in 100 years and I’m really excited about the opportunities that we have to redefine the future of learning.”
According to Byju’s, it has over 64 million registered students and 4.2 million annual paid subscriptions. The online education platform also claims to have doubled its revenue from INR 1,430 crore (USD 195 million) in FY 18-19 to INR 2,800 crore (USD 381 million) in FY 19-20.
Overall, the online edtech company has so far raised over USD 2.3 billion from global high-profile investors including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sofina, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, Tiger Global Management, General Atlantic, Naspers, Tencent, and Bond, among others.
Flushed with VC money, Byju’s is aiming to seize more market share in the rapidly growing India edtech sector, while charting out its international expansion strategy.
In fact, the consolidation in the soon-to-be USD 3.5 billion edtech space has already kicked off. Last month, Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr., a Mumbai-based coding platform, for a whopping USD 300 million. Byju’s is reportedly looking to acquire app-based doubt solving app Doubtnut for USD 125-150 million.
The development comes days after Byju’s biggest rival Unacademy closed a USD 150 million funding led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. The USD 1.45-billion valued edtech firm has also been out buying smaller competitors. It acquired Chandigarh-based medical entrance exam preparation startup PrepLadder for USD 50 million in July. The same month, it picked up a majority stake in the K-12 learning-focused platform Mastree. It also bought coding startup CodeChef in mid-June, and Kreatryx, an online platform for preparing GATE (Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering) in March.
