Bangalore: Online education startup Byju’s is close to raising $ 200 million in a new round of funding from US investment firms BlackRock and T. Rowe Price with a valuation of $ 12 billion, said a person familiar with the matter.
The Bengaluru-based educational technology firm had last raised $ 500 million in September from a group of investors that included private equity firm Silver Lake Partners along with existing investors General Atlantic, Owl Ventures and Tiger Global with a $ 10.8 billion valuation.
BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon Capital joined as new investors, as part of the same round later, with a valuation that rose to $ 11.1 billion.
The Byju spokesman did not respond to inquiries.
BlackRock and T. Rowe Price could not be immediately reached.
The surge in investor interest also catapulted Byju’s to the second most valuable startup in India, which also earned it the status of decacorn, the handful of startups that are valued at more than $ 10 billion.
In an interview with Mint in August, founder Byju Raveendran said that the company has reached a stage where it has the option to do an initial public offering (IPO) earlier, although the timeline is yet to be decided.
“Byju’s is not only actively looking at international expansion, but also strategic inorganic growth,” said a second person, who asked not to be named.
Byju’s was valued at around $ 8 billion in January when it raised $ 200 million in equity funds 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.
Since the closure, Byju’s has added more than 25 million new students to its platform. The application has more than 73 million registered students and 5.1 million paid subscriptions annually. It has also introduced a Byju’s Classes online tutoring program to meet the learning needs of students after school. Learning programs in various vernacular languages such as Hindi, Kannada, Bengali, Malayalam and Gujarati have also been introduced during the shutdown.
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