Exclusive: Reliance-owned Embibe acquihires OnlineTyari

Reliance-owned Embibe has acqui-hired test prep platform OnlineTyari as the latter has failed to convince venture capitalists to infuse money into the firm. According to two Entrackr sources, the OnlineTyari team joined the Embibe team late last year as part of this transaction.  

“None of the stakeholders made any money in this deal. Only the founding team joined Embibe,” said one of the sources on condition of anonymity. “The entire business, as well as intellectual property was transferred to Embibe in return for a few crores in cash.”

While education technology startups such as Byju’s, Unacademy and Vedantu have been the darling of investors raising staggering amounts of money at eye-popping valuations, there are several others in this space that have fumbled — OnlineTyari being one of them. 

Founded by Bhola Meena and Udai Singh Meena, OnlineTyari has been offering test preparation and assessment for job aspirants in the public sector. It has essentially focused on Banking, SSC and Railways exams.

“By the end of 2019 financial year, the company ran out of money and existing investors backed out of putting more money into OnlineTyari,” said the second source cited above, requesting anonymity. “As a result, the company started looking out for buyers.” 

OnlineTyari raised over $4 million in two rounds of funding from the likes of Mohandas Pai, Vikram Chachra, Aloke Bajpai, Tracxn Labs, Dell Foundation, Contrarian Drishti, and 3one4 Capital among a few others.

Sources also outlined that OnlineTyari had engaged with Byju’s and a few others for a potential acquihire. However, they passed on the offer as they believed that OnlineTyari didn’t have much value to offer.

Entrackr queries sent to Bhola and Aditi Awasthi, founder and CEO of Embibe didn’t elicit any response. We will update the post as and when they respond. 

It’s worth noting that Prachi Jain Windlass, director of India at Michael and Susan Dell Foundation India and Vikram Charcha, the founding partner of 8i Ventures resigned as directors from the OnlineTyari board last year.