Exclusive: Byju’s issues shares worth $400 Mn to Epic; tops up Series F round

Edtech decacorn Byju’s has issued fresh shares worth $400 million to Epic, a US-based reading platform. This comes after four months of the announcement of the acquisition by Byju’s in a deal that was expected to be closed at around $500 million.

Byju’s has allotted 125,984 shares worth $400 million to Epic Creations in a share swap agreement, regulatory filings show. According to two Entrackr’s sources, the Bengaluru-based company will settle the remaining purchase consideration i.e. $100 million via cash.

The company has allotted 17,697 Series F shares at an issue price of Rs 285,072 per share to raise Rs 504.5 crore or a little over $67 million. Chan Zuckerberg and GenGlobal Bright Corp have invested Rs 280 crore and Rs 224.5 crore respectively.

It’s worth noting that Byju’s had already raised Rs 2,200 crore or $296 million in the same round at around $18 billion valuation. The fresh tranche takes the current valuation of the Byju Raveendran-led company to $18.5 billion, as per Fintrackr’s estimates.

Queries sent to Byju’s remained unanswered until the publication of the story.

Byju’s has continued to mop up funds through equity or debt since the beginning of this year. The firm has raised over $1.5 billion in equity in 2021 and recently picked up $1.2 billion through debt or via a term loan from the overseas market.

According to media reports, the company plans to use the proceeds to fund general corporate purposes and expand its overseas operations. Byju’s has also made a series of acquisitions in the past year and has spent more than $2 billion for those acquisitions in which Aakash Educational Services, Great Learning and Epic were the most expensive deals.

Seven-year-old Epic is a collection of more than 40,000 popular books from hundreds of notable publishers. Backed by the likes of Creative Artists Agency, Evolution Media and Reach Capital, Epic has raised about $60 million since its inception.

According to Entrackr’s sources, the ongoing Series F round will be closed by Byju's at over $21 billion valuation. Meanwhile, several media reports hint that the company may file IPO papers in the US at a valuation of $40-50 billion by the next year.