Ed-tech unicorn BYJU's secures $122 million from Russian billionaire's fund
Homegrown ed-tech unicorn BYJU's has raised $122 million (Rs. 909 crore) from DST Global, the investment fund started by Russian tech billionaire Yuri Milner. The funding is the fourth tranche of capital being secured by the Bengaluru-headquartered company as part of a broader and ongoing Series F round. Here is all you need to know about it.
Under the terms of the latest deal, first reported by Entrackr, BYJU's is diluting a 1.2% stake in its business to DST Global for Rs. 909 crore. According to the filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the education technology company will allot as many as 42,666 Series F preference shares to the fund at an issue price of Rs. 213,042.13 per share.
Post the allotment, the stake owned by BYJU's promoters, which include founder Byju Raveendran, his wife Divya Gokulnath, and brother Riju Raveendran, will reduce to 33.1% from 33.45%. This translates into nearly $3.3 billion in the company that is estimated to be valued somewhere between $10-10.5 billion. The latest investment valued BYJU's at $10 billion.
Prior to this, as part of the Series F round, BYJU's had raised $23 million from BOND Capital and $200 million each from Tiger Global and General Atlantic. Overall, the company is estimated to have raised about $1.5 billion in funding from the aforementioned ventures as well as Tencent, Prosus & Naspers, Qatar Investment Authority, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sofina, and Lightspeed.
BYJU's fund-raising spree can be directly attributed to the rise of ed-tech in India. The 'online learning' category was already growing, but the COVID-19 pandemic has given a sudden thrust to the entire sector, bringing millions of Indians to online platforms for learning. This is also one of the reasons why BYJU's recently acquired online coding learning platform WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million.
Due to COVID-19 tailwinds, online education across Classes 1 to 12 are projected to increase by 6.3 times in two years to create a $1.7 billion market, while the post-K12 market is estimated to grow 3.7 times to touch $1.8 billion by 2022.
