India’s leading edtech startup Byju’s is all set to raise another round of investment from new and existing investors at over $2 billion valuations. Online tutoring platform is in advanced stage of investment talks with private equity firm General Atlantic and Temasek Holdings.
The deal is expected to close within a few weeks, said Mint report quoting people aware of the development. General Atlantic or Temasek will participate in the funding round, and may not invest simultaneously. Existing investors, including China’s Tencent Holdings, may also participate, added the sources.
However, companies involved in the round have not confirmed the reports.
If the deal goes through, Byju’s valuation would be more than its previous round. The ten-year-old firm, which started out as an offline teaching centre, has grown their businesses and consistently attracted blue-chip investors.
The Bengaluru-based platform has over 20 million users and 1.26 million annual paid subscribers. Through its flagship product-Byju’s-The learning app, it offers learning programmes for class K-12 & test preparation for JEE, AIPMT, CAT, IAS, GRE & GMAT.
After gaining good ground in India, Byju’s has been aggressively expanding in different geographies including the US, the UK, and Australia. It had recently hired around 600 employees across product, content, tech and business development roles. In July, Byju’s had acquired Bengaluru-based math learning startup Math Adventures for an undisclosed amount. This is overall Byju’s fourth acquisition in the last 18 months.
The company’s earlier acquisitions include TutorVista, Edurite (In July 2017), and data analytics platform Vidyartha (In Jan 2017).
It claimed to be a single ed-tech platform to have gained unicorn status. Byju’s expected to reach profitability in FY18. The company has been growing at 100 per cent annually for the last three years and recently crossed Rs 100 crore in monthly revenue.
Byju’s is targeting a revenue of Rs 1,400 crore this financial year.
So far Byju’s has raised about $244 million from investors including Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Sofina, Lightspeed Ventures, Verlinvest, Aarin Capital and Times Internet. If this deal goes through it will take the tally to $544 million.
It faces competition from ed-tech players such as Edureka, Onlinetyari, Simplilearn, Meritnation among others.
