Moneycontrol reported in August that the company was in the initial stage to raise $500 million via a TLB and that it had started working with Morgan Stanley.
India’s most valued startup Byju’s is raising $1.2 billion through a term loan B (TLB) funding.
Moneycontrol reported in August that the company was in initial stage to raise $500 million via a TLB and that it had started working with Morgan Stanley.
According to sources, while the company planned to raise $500 million, the round got upsized following increased investor appetite.
In a filing, the company has disclosed it will utilise this money for general corporate purposes.
TLB refers to a tranche of senior secured syndicated credit facilities from global institutional investors.
With this round, Byju’s becomes the second company to have raised a TLB in India. Oyo was the first company to have raised this debt.
Conventionally, TLB proceeds are used either to refinance the existing debts by a company or to make overseas acquisitions with an aim to enhance their offerings.
This happens at a time when the company is gearing up for an initial public offering.
In an interaction with Moneycontrol in July, Byju Raveendran, founder and chief executive officer of Byju’s said that the company was considering a 12-18 months timeline for an IPO.
Byju’s, which has spent over $2 billion in acquisitions in the last six months, also has plans for a couple of more acquisitions to drive international expansion.
In July, it acquired upskilling platform Great Learning for $600 million and plans to invest $400 million more in this segment, as it looks to expand its education services globally across categories.
Earlier in 2021, the company also acquired US-based reading platform Epic, educational games maker Osmo, coding startup WhiteHat Jr and offline test preparation firm Aakash Educational Services Limited. Aakash alone was bought for a whopping $1 billion.
Valued at $16.5 billion, the company last announced a fundraise of $350 million from UBS, Blackstone, ADQ, Phoenix Rising & Zoom founder Eric Yuan in June.
In the last 18 months, it raised over $1.5 billion which is much more than the total funding raised by the company earlier. This euphoria is broadly driven by the growth of online education which got turbocharged by COVID-19 in India.Moneycontrol has reached out to Byju’s for a comment. The story will be updated once they respond.
