New investors value Byju’s at $11 bn
BENGALURU: Online learning startup Byju’s garnered an undisclosed amount from three new investors BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon Capital at a valuation of $11.1 billion, said a person familiar with the matter.
The fund-raising is part of an ongoing $500 million funding round, and it topped the $10.8 billion valuation at which Byju’s raised funds earlier this month from a clutch of investors including private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, along with existing investors General Atlantic, Owl Ventures and Tiger Global.
The rush of investments into the edtech startup comes amid a surge in demand for online teaching after remote learning replaced physical classrooms after the nationwide lockdown was announced in end-March. The company, which teaches
students through a mobile app, has added more than 25 million students on its platform since the lockdown. The app currently has more than 70 million registered students and 4.5 million paid subscribers.
Byju’s had made content on its learning app free for all in response to schools being shut due to the Covid crisis and lockdowns. It also began an online tutoring programme, Byju’s Classes, to cater to after-school learning needs of students while starting learning modules in regional languages Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati. “We are excited to welcome BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon as partners. As we continue to create engaging and personalised learning solutions, partnerships like these reaffirm our commitment to build and transform the global learning landscape through technology, innovation and quality pedagogy. Continued support from our existing investors is a testament of their confidence in us and our mission,” Byju Raveendran, founder and chief executive of Byju’s said in a statement on Tuesday.
The firm has raised around $1 billion since January, including the latest tranche. The soaring interest from global investors has catapulted Byju’s into India’s second-most valuable startup after Paytm, also earning it the decacorn status—the handful of startups that are valued at more than $10 billion..