Bengaluru-based, Edtech startup Byju’s has become India’s most valuable startup with a valuation of $16.5 billion in its current investment round, surpassing Fintech firm PayTm’s $16 billion valuations. BYJU’S valuation has doubled from $8 billion in January 2020 to $16.5 billion after its latest round of funding.
Byju’s has raised $350 million from UBS, private equity giant Blackstone, Abu Dhabi state fund ADQ, Phoenix Rising, and video conference firm Zoom’s founder Eric Yuan, regulatory filings said. Byju’s has raised over $1.5 billion in the last 18 months, many times more than total funding earlier, with growth for online education turbocharged by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Investment to fund more acquisitions
The bulk of the capital raised will be used to fund a spate of acquisitions Byju’s has lined up. In April, the firm acquired brick-and-mortar test prep service provider Aakash Educational Services (AESL) in a close to $1 billion cash and stock deal.
Byju’s is also understood to have acquired rival Toppr in a transaction estimated to be over $100 million; the deal has not yet been formally announced. Besides, it is also closing in on discussions to acquire other related businesses including Great Learning and Gradeup, according to reports.
Due to various acquisitions over the years, Byju’s now provides an array of educational services for students in all age groups, from toddlers to high school and college entrance exams students and beyond. It also has a customer base in the US and other developed markets, where parents are often likely to pay more for education.
The edtech startup has also been one of the few profitable internet unicorns companies valued at over a billion dollars. Byju’s is said to have over a billion dollars in revenue for FY22 and still growing fast. It claims to have as many as 80 million registered users and 5.5 million subscribers, saw its revenues double in FY21 over the previous year.
The market size of the Indian edtech sector is estimated to grow by 3.7 times in the next five years, to touch $10.4 billion by 2025 from $2.8 billion in 2020, according to a recent report by EY-IVCA. The segment will see more than 37 million paid users by 2025.
The edtech space led by Byju’s also cornered the bulk of the startup funding in 2020 as the pandemic led to a boom in subscriptions for online education. Many investors, including new backers like Silver Lake and Alkeon Capital collectively infused over $1 billion into the company last year.
Incidentally, Paytm, which held the most valuable internet startup’s crown, is planning a $30 billion public share offering this year.
