Exclusive: Byju’s infuses Rs 136 Cr in WhiteHat Jr

When it comes to consumer internet space this year, Byju’s has outnumbered everyone by stellar growth, raising back to back funding tranches and crossing the decacorn status. The company also acquired WhiteHat Jr in a deal worth $300 million. Almost after a month of announcing the acquisition, Byju’s has pumped in Rs 136 crore.

This is the maiden infusion by Byju’s in the coding platform meant for school-going children. According to regulatory filings, the Mumbai-based company has allotted 1,943 equity shares for Rs 7,00,187 per share to Byjus on the right basis.

It’s worth noting that Byju's and WhiteHat Jr are yet to file documents regarding the announced acquisition. The latest shares allotted are issued on an equal rate with the existing shares and the rights associated with both the existing as well as the new shares would remain the same.

The capital infusion has come soon after the Byju Raveendran-led edtech startup has raised the Series F’s fifth tranche of $500 million led by Silver Lake. With this, the company has cornered over $1 billion in 2020 which makes it the only Indian consumer internet startup to do so this year. 

WhiteHat Jr is an 18-month-old company founded by Karan Bajaj, former CEO of Discovery Networks South Asia. It teaches coding skills to school children and claims to have a 45% month-on-month growth since the launch of its first product in February 2019. 

Besides for one to 9 grades, the company had launched an advanced curriculum for students from 10-12 grades which involves learning python algorithms, artificial intelligence, and building full-fledged applications. Before the acquisition, it had raised $10 million in institutional capital from Nexus Venture Partners, Omidyar Network India and Owl Ventures.

WhiteHat Jr also has started overseas operations in countries including Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand. While the coding learning space was largely dominated by WhiteHat Jr, the popularity of the Bajaj-led company triggered many including Toppr, Vedantu, Cuemath to start coding focused verticals.

Unacademy also acquired CodeChef, but it’s yet to begin any coding-focused courses for school-going students. While WhiteHat Jr is undoubtedly one of the fastest exits with a staggering upside for all stakeholders in the Indian startup ecosystem, it has been lately facing wrath from people on social media for using the face of stalwarts like Steve Jobs, Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg to create hype around its courses.