Exclusive: Byju’s mops up $50 Mn from two new investors IIFL and Maitri Edtech

Byju’s appears always to be in a fundraising mode. After mopping up over $340 million last week from a clutch of investors, the company has now raised another $50 million from two new investors - India Infoline Finance Limited and Maitri Edtech.

Byju’s has allotted 12,750 Series F preference shares at an issue price of Rs 2,85,071.62 each to raise Rs 363.5 crore or $50 million, regulatory filings with the Registrar of Companies show.

IIFL has led the fresh tranche with $35 million or Rs 255 crore whereas Delaware-based Maitri Edtech has put in $15 million or Rs 108.5 crore.

With this, the Bengaluru-based firm has mopped up over $1.5 billion in 2021.

It’s worth noting that the fresh tranche in Series F has come on the heels of Byju’s previous one in which it raised Rs 2500 crore or $342 million from Fir Tree Partners, Asmaan Ventures, Blackstone, Phoenix Rising - Beacon Holdings, UBS, Abu Dhabi government fund (ADQ) and Eric Yuan. 

According to media reports, the company was valued at $16.5 billion and had outvalued Paytm to become the highest valued startup at the moment in India.

Following the fresh tranche, the co-founders' equity has been diluted to 23.4%. Besides Byju’s Raveendran, his spouse Divya Gokulnath and brother Riju Raveendran also own a stake in a decade-old company. 

While their holdings have been diluted from over 33% to 23.4% in the past year, the worth of their stake is greater than any other unicorn founder’s in India. Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma is another founder who has stakes worth over a billion USD. The combined stake of Byju’s co-founders is worth around $3.86 billion.

Ritesh Agarwal appears to be the only founder of a hyper-funded unicorn who continues to hold around 30% of the company. Agarwal increased his stake after acquiring 15% of Oyo from Oyo’s early-stage backers – Lightspeed and Sequoia. 

For acquiring an additional stake, Agarwal had taken a loan of $1.5 billion by pledging his holding to Japanese lenders Mizuho Financial Group and Nomura.

Byju’s has emerged as the undisputed leader in the edtech space followed by Unacademy. It has emerged as a major acquirer in the segment too, having already taken over Aakash Institute in $1 billion and WhiteHat Jr in $300 million and a few others. 

The company is also in the advanced stage to acquire The Great Learning, Mumbai-based Toppr and GradeUp.