Existing investors Tiger Global, General Atlantic and Owl Ventures also participated in the investment round, Byju’s said in a note Tuesday.
The company, named after its founder Byju Raveendran, has raised about $ 1 billion since January, reflecting the surge in investor interest in Indian educational technology startups as learning remote replaced classrooms amid closure. Companies like Byju’s are benefiting from the willingness of middle-class Indian families to spend a large portion of their income on education and tutoring to give their children a head start amid rampant unemployment.
The surge in investor interest has catapulted Byju’s to the second most valuable startup in India, which has also earned it the status of decacorn, the handful of startups valued at more than $ 10 billion.
It’s not just from Byju. The pandemic has also helped rival educational technology startups sign up thousands of paying customers. Last week, Unacademy raised $ 150 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, tripling its valuation to $ 1.45 billion in just six months.
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The educational technology segment is poised to receive more investor attention in the near future, according to Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and founder of Greyhound Research.
“A large part of the customer base that Byju’s and Unacademy are targeting are still students who do not have access to smartphones, tablets and other devices. Edtech will become a bigger market opportunity when it disrupts the core curriculum of schools and universities, “Gogia said.
In an interview on May 19, Raveendran, 39, said: “Covid has been a turning point for education where screens have become the primary mode of content consumption for students. The ‘classrooms of tomorrow’ will have technology at their core. “
On Tuesday, he said the crisis has put online learning at the forefront. “Our classrooms are changing for possibly the first time in 100 years, and I am excited about the opportunities we have to redefine the future of learning,” Raveendran said in a note.
The new round values Byju at $ 10.8 billion, up from its last valuation at $ 10.5 billion from its previous Series F round that closed in August.
“This is a separate corporate round different from the previous Series F round and there are more new international investors expected to fund Byju,” said a person familiar with the development.
Byju’s was valued at around $ 8 billion in January when it raised $ 200 million in equity funding from New York-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management. That round had raised Byju’s valuation by 45%.
Since then, Byju’s valuation has risen by an additional 35%. He had turned into a unicorn in late 2017 when he raised money from a group of investors, led by China’s Tencent.
Founded in 2011 by Raveendran and his wife, Divya Gokulnath, Byju has more than 64 million registered students. Raveendran and Gokulnath were teachers and engaged in entrepreneurship when the wave of internet funding took off in India after 2010.
Raveendran began by uploading videos on YouTube under the name Byju, explaining elementary and middle school concepts like algebra and probability. His first video posted to YouTube in February 2011 has more than 110,000 views.
Today, the company’s application has more than 4.2 million paid subscriptions annually.
Since closing, Byju’s, which doubled its income from ₹1,430 crore to ₹28.00 crore in 2019-20, it has seen over 20 million students join its platform for free. The startup also made its fifth and largest acquisition of WhiteHat Jr., which teaches coding to kids, in a $ 300 million cash deal.
The educational technology boom is led by young and ambitious entrepreneurs like Raveendran, who have harnessed technology to reach millions. Unacademy CEO Gaurav Munjal said in an interview last week that he wants to make the company the largest consumer internet company in India, displacing e-commerce and payments companies.
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