The company has already acquired US-based reading platform Epic for $500 million and coding site Tynker for $200 million.
Edtech firm Byju’s plans to raise Rs 3900 crore, which is roughly equal to $500 million in a fresh round of funding within a week, a report quoting sources privy to the development has said. This will be done at a valuation of around $23 billion. The company is planning to use the funding for acquisition in the US, said the report. The company is in discussion with Abu Dhabi’s Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) and Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) for raising in the range of $400-500 million and $250-350 million, respectively
“Byju’s is in an advanced stage of discussion with some investors. The company is likely to raise over $500 million in about a week. The transaction is expected to be closed at a valuation of around $23 billion,” one of the sources, who did not wish to be named, was quoted as saying by news agency PTI on Sunday.
Byju’s has refused to comment on the report.
The funding is part of the company’s plan to use the fund for inorganic expansion, especially in the US, as per the PTI report. The company has already acquired US-based reading platform Epic for $500 million and coding site Tynker for $200 million. The other overseas acquisitions of Byju’s include Singapore-based Great Learning for around $200 million and Austria’s mathematics operator GeoGebdra for approximately $100 million.
Byju’s is learnt to be in active discussion with US-based edtech firm 2U, which runs platforms like edX that offers online courses created by Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Boston University etc. The edtech firm was also mulling acquiring Chegg.
Read More: Exclusive: PhonePe begins work to launch its own payment gateway
However, there is no active discussion going on with Chegg, said the source.
The fresh fundraise for the Byju’s comes at a time when the company is yet to get $250 million committed by Sumeru Ventures and Oxshott as part of the $800 million round of funding announced in March at a valuation of $22 billion. The sources said the company has maintained growth momentum and the inorganic expansion, specially Aakash and Great Learning have been fuelling its consolidated business.
“Byju’s Great Learning has achieved over 200 per cent growth in international learner base in 2021. Great Learning has crossed the revenue run rate of $100 million in the financial year (FY) 2021. “The company concluded FY20 with booked revenue of Rs 325 crores, which is a growth of close to 150 per cent from FY19. The company’s user base has also grown ten-fold in FY21,” they added.
The company has been making efforts to go global. In early 2019, Byju’s acquired Osmo, a Palo Alto-based maker of educational games to transform the whole offline to online learning experience.
Byju’s, which has a presence in 120 countries, claims to have 7.5 million paid users on its platform and maintains an average retention or renewal rate of 86 per cent annually.
