Byju’s bets on higher education with $600-mn Great Learning buy

Ed-tech company Byju's has acquired Great Learning in the higher education segment for $600 million and exam preparation solutions provider Toppr for $150 million. With this, the company has spent more than $2.5 billion on acquisitions since the beginning of 2020.

The deal acquiring Singapore-based Great Learning comprises cash, stock and earn-out transactions. It has also earmarked another $400 million of investment towards accelerating Great Learning's growth.

Founded in 2013, Great learning has delivered over 60 million hours of impactful learning to 1.5 million learners from over 170 countries. It collaborates with the best universities in the world including Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McCombs Sch-ool of BusinessUniversity of Texas at Austin, Northwestern University, National University of Singapore, Deakin Univer-sity and the IITs.

While Byju's has announced the Great Learning deal, it is still waiting for some clearances to complete the deal with Mumbai-based Toppr. Toppr provides a learning app for KG to 12

(K-12) students, allowing them to take live classes and tests.

Byju's has made a few high-value acquisitions in the education space in the last one-and-a-half years. It acquired WhiteHat Junior for $300 million in August 2020. Aakash Educational Services was bought in April this year in a cash and stock deal valued close to $1 billion. It recently announced the

$500-million Epic deal with the US-based company. With Great Learning and Toppr, its total spending on acquisitions stood at $2.55 billion.