Byju’s to go global with a one-to-one learning platform led by Karan Bajaj

India’s edtech leader Byju’s is now turning its attention to international markets with a one-to-one learning platform called ‘Byju’s Future School’.  

In an announcement made on Thursday, the company said that the platform will be launched in the USA, UK, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico by May, with plans of expanding to more countries in the near future.

Karan Bajaj, the co-founder and CEO of Whitehat Jr which Byju’s had acquired in August 2020, will lead the global expansion. 

Aimed at kids aged between 6-18 years, the platform will offer virtual classes on coding and Maths at launch, in both synchronous and asynchronous formats. Subjects such as Science, Music, English and Fine Arts are currently under development, the company said. 

The coding curriculum will also be available in Spanish and Portuguese in markets such as Brazil and Mexico. The project consists of a women-only teaching team majorly based out of India, and will further expand in non-English countries such as Mexico and Brazil, Byju’s said. 

This could open up additional revenue streams for the company which is close to raising around $600-700 million from new and existing investors. Entrackr had exclusively reported its potential fundraise which will value the company close to $15 billion.

The company recently acquired Aakash Educational Services Limited in a nearly $1 billion cash and stock deal. The acquisition is expected to give Byju’s a stronghold in the test preparatory segment.

Apart from India, Byju’s has increased its focus on the US market for the past couple of years. In January 2019, the company had acquired the Palo Alto-based gaming cum learning platform Osmo for $120 million. Osmo uses Reflective Artificial Intelligence (RAI) technology to craft educational games, and has a presence in over 35,000 U.S. elementary school classrooms.

When Byju’s had acquired Whitehat Jr last August, it had said the acquisition would help it in expanding to the US market. 

While Byju’s is yet to file annual financial statements for FY20 with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs or MCA, the company had claimed to have achieved a two-fold jump in its revenue in FY20 compared to the previous year, and said that it had met its revenue target of Rs 2,800 crore for the fiscal.