Edtech unicorn Byju’s announced on Wednesday evening that it has acquired WhiteHat Jr, a Mumbai-based edtech startup, in a deal reportedly for $300 million. WhiteHat is a popular coding platform. Byju’s said that this would integrate the two brands, with Byju’s already available offerings in edtech along with WhiteHat Jr’s in live online coding.
This deal, Byju’s added, would accelerate its US expansion plans. They also pegged it to the newly announced New Educational Policy (NEP), which it said is pushing coding from an earlier age.
Whitehat Jr claims to have a revenue run rate of $150 million. WhiteHat offers one-on-one classes with an expert and also offers classes to kids ages 6-14. WhiteHat Jr. offers four levels of courses – Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Professional – for students in grades 1-9.
Launched in December 2018, WhiteHat has raised $11 million in funding so far from the Omidyar Network and Nexus Venture Partners and Owl Ventures. These investors are now expected to get a strong exit.
Other acquisitions by Byju’s include Math Adventures, TutorVista, Vidyarth and Osmo. A $300 million all-cash deal would make this the edtech company’s biggest acquisition to date.
Byju’s said that it would be making “significant investments” into WhiteHat Jr’s tech platform, product innovation as well as expanding its teacher base to cater to demand from new markets. This will continue to be led by WhiteHat Jr’s founder Karan Bajaj.
Byju’s co-founder and CEO Byju Raveendran said, “WhiteHat Jr is the leader in the live online coding space. Karan has proven his mettle as an exceptional founder and the credit goes to him and his team for creating coding programs that are loved by kids. Under his leadership, the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time.”
“Technology is at the centre of every human interaction today and we had set out to create a coding curriculum that was being delivered live and connected students and teachers like never before. Integration with a visionary company such as BYJU’S will help take this idea to new heights and help unleash the remarkable creative potential of kids at a global scale,” added Karan Bajaj.
This comes soon after WhiteHat announced plans to expand into global markets and said it has been growing over 100% month-on-month in the US this year since February.
Till now, Byju’s has received nearly $1.5 billion in funding, with investors including BOND Capital, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Tencent, Prosus & Naspers, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Capital etc. Reports also state that the company is looking at more funding this year, and that late-stage VC fund backed by Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, DST Global, is in advanced talks to invest around $400 million. This funding round, reports said, values Byju’s at $10-10.5 billion. This would make it the second most valued unicorn in India, pushing ahead of OYO and just behind Paytm.
Byju’s, launched in 2015, said that it has over 64 million students learning from the app, and 4.2 million paid subscribers with an 85% renewal rate. As the lockdown spurred online learning, Byju’s said that it has had over 15 million new students on the platform, and did Rs 500 crore revenue in July.