Byju’s gets a fresh Rs 363.45 crore from investors

Byju’s that 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.

Byju’s has raised a fresh Rs 363.45 crore (about $50 million) in funding from Maitri Edtech and IIFL, according to the company’s filings with the RoC sources from business intelligence platform Tofler. The investment is part of the company’s ongoing Series F financial round.

The latest funding comes a little over a week after a clutch of investors including UBS Group, Blackstone, Abu Dhabi state fund ADQ, Phoenix Rising and Zoom founder & CEO Eric Yuan infused close to $350 million into the Bengaluru-based company, making it the most-valued start-up worth about $16.5 billion.

Byju’s has been raising funding in tranches since the early months of the year as part of its Series F investment. Investors including Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s B Capital Group, Baron Funds, XN Exponent Holdings have already infused over $1 billion into the company. The recent $50 million investment takes the total size of the financing round to more than $1.5 billion.

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.

The ed-tech space led by Byju’s also cornered the bulk of the start-up funding in 2020 as the pandemic led to a boom in subscriptions for online educational services. A bunch of investors including new backers like Silver Lake and Alkeon Capital collectively infused over $1 billion into the company last year.

Byju’s that 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.