Byju’s throws half a billion to catch ’em young in US
Eyeing the US ed-tech market, home-grown Byju’s has acquired Epic, California-based global digital reading platform, for $500 million.
A digital reading platform for kids below 12 years, Epic has a collection of over 40,000 popular books, audio books and videos from around 250 of publishers. Epic reaches more than 50 million kids in homes and classrooms and more than 2 million teachers have signed up on the platform.
Byju’s has aggressive plans for expanding its operations in the US as well as in other Englishspeaking countries. Epic will be available in other English-speaking countries as well as in India. The company plans to invest $1 billion in North America. The acquisition of Epic will lead to significant investments in technology for personalized learning and will enable Byju’s to become a natural part of America’s learning culture.
Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO of Byju's, said the partnership with Epic will enable the company to create engaging and interactive reading and learning experiences for children globally.
"Our mission is to fuel curiosity and make students fall in love with learning. Knowing that Epic and its products are rooted in the same mission, it was a natural fit. Together we have the opportunity to create impactful experiences for children to become lifelong learners," he added.
Suren Markosian, Epic CEO, and co-founder Kevin Donahue will remain in their roles, Byju’s said.
“We created Epic to make quality books more accessible to kids everywhere, and to build a safe place for them to discover the joy and magic of reading in their own way,” said Suren Markosian, CEO and cofounder of Epic.
In January 2019, Byju's had acquired a US-based Osmo, a maker of educational games for children aged 3–8 years for $120 million and the integration has seen Osmo scale four times since, claimed the company.
Byju’s Future School, a one-on-one live learning platform for Math and Coding was released last month. This school will become available in the US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico soon.
Byju’s is also partnering with the Walt Disney Company for a learning app targeted at children aged 6-8 years. The company had raised a massive $1.5 billion from investors a few months back and was valued $16.5 billion.