Indian edtech major Byju’s has raised $500 million in a fresh round of funding led by US-based private equity giant Silver Lake.
According to the company, existing investors Tiger Global, General Atlantic, and Owl Ventures also participated in the round.
The latest funding comes shortly after the company had raised $122 million as part of its ongoing Series F round from Russian tech billionaire Yuri Milner’s investment fund DST Global in August. The new round values Byju’s at $10.8 billion, up from its last valuation at $10.5 billion from its earlier round.
Speaking about the latest development, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, Byju’s, said in a statement:
“We are excited to welcome a strong partner like Silver Lake to the Byju’s family. We are fortunate to be in a sector of positive relevance during this crisis. This has brought online learning to the forefront and is helping parents, teachers and students experience and understand its value. Our classrooms are changing possibly for the first time in 100 years and I’m really excited about the opportunities that we have to redefine the future of learning.”
The coronavirus crisis has significantly boosted Byju’s business, with schools shut to contain the global pandemic, and online learning became the mainstream way of learning. In response to the closure of schools, the company had made content on its learning app free for all students. Since the lockdown, Byju’s has seen over 20 million new students start learning from its platform for free. Today, the online learning platform has over 64 million registered learners, with more than 4.2 million paid subscribers and annual renewal rates as high as 85%. Byju’s had doubled its revenue to Rs 2,800 crore in FY 19-20 from Rs 1,430 crore.
Commenting on the investment, Greg Mondre, Co-CEO of Silver Lake, said,
“We are delighted to lead this investment and partner with Byju’s and his impressive team of education technology pioneers in their mission to help children in India and around the world achieve their true potential. We look forward to working with them as Byju’s builds on and accelerates its compelling growth trajectory by forging new partnerships and continuing to cultivate a comprehensive ecosystem of innovative educational offerings.”
This year, so far, Byju’s has raised over $1 billion in funding, including its Series F round which saw Tiger Global and General Atlantic investing $200 million each in January and February respectively. In June 2020, the edtech decacorn had secured another $100 million from global technology investment firm Bond Capital. And, on 27th August 2020, the company raised another $122 million as part of its ongoing Series F funding round from DST Global.
Apart from list of mega investment deals and growth in numbers, Byju’s had acquired Mumbai-based coding platform WhiteHat Jr for $300 million in one of the largest merger and acquisition deals in the Indian startup ecosystem till date.
