EdTech decacorn Byju’s has acquired Mumbai-based doubt-clearing EdTech platform Scholr in an all-cash deal, which is said to be about ₹18 crore.
According to industry sources, the deal has been finalized and likely to be announced soon.
Founded by Himanshu Nimje, Manil Gupta, Piyush Agarwal, and Aniket Singh in 2015, Scholr helps students between classes 6 and 10 solve their doubts through its video-based application that is available on mobile phones. It enables students to just click and upload pictures of their questions to find instant solutions across subjects including Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and others.
Scholr specializes in homework help across NCERT textbooks, state board textbooks, and other board books. The app also provides academic support to users from peers and experts on the platform. In less than one year of inception, Scholr’s app is claimed to have been downloaded by more than 1 lakh students who have asked more than 10 lakh questions.
Mumbai-based Scholr is said to have raised around $382K in multiple seed rounds from Zone Startups India, 50K Ventures, Edupreneur Village Fund, IIIT-H Seed Fund, and Xseed Partners among its investors.
Meanwhile, the acquisition is said to be part of Byju’s strategy to scale up its presence into multiple areas related to education. The acquisition has also marked the Bengaluru-based EdTech major’s entry into on-demand doubt-clearance space.
The latest acquisition comes weeks after Byju’s failed to close the acquisition deal with Doubtnut, a Gurugram-based interactive doubt-solving platform. The two companies were in late-stage talks for a potential acquisition, but the deal is said to have failed due to differences over valuation.
Byju’s is on an acquisition spree. The company has signed a deal to acquire brick and mortar test prep pioneer Aakash Educational Services Ltd for $1 billion. The company is also said to be in late-stage talks with Toppr to acquire the company for $150 million. So far, Byju’s has acquired half a dozen EdTech platforms, which include virtual simulation startup LabInApp (September 2020), online coding platform WhiteHat Jr (August 2020), Osmo (2019), Math Adventures (2018), TutorVista and Vidyarth (2017).
According to the company, Byju’s has around 70 million registered users on its platform, with 4.5 million yearly paid subscribers. The company has raised over $1 billion in funding last year, and is currently valued at around $11-12 billion.
