Ed-tech platform Byju’s is busy obliterating competition. Or complementary businesses, as the modern-day business lingo would have it. Howsoever one may want to term it, Byju's, which is already the most valuable Indian unicorn out there, is setting a scorching pace in terms of takeovers.
Just a few days back, the ed-tech startup acquired US-headquartered reading platform Epic in a $500 million deal, while also announcing an investment worth $1 billion in North American Market. And close on its heels, Byju's is acquiring upskilling platform Great Learning, along with its take over of the after-school learning and doubts platform Toppr (The latter was on the cards for some time now).
These acquisitions add up to six in 2021 itself for Byju's.
In terms of acquisitions since 2017, the largest in the list is the 33-year-old test-prep company Aakash that Byju's bought out for a price tag of $1 billion.
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Byju's looking beyond K12 segment
As per market reports, Byju's has shelled out $600 million for Great Learning and $150 million for Toppr. In all, Byju’s has spent $2.2 billion in acquiring various companies in 2021 alone.
The takeover of Great Learning is apparently aimed towards helping Byju’s further expand its services beyond K12 (kindergarten to grade 12) and test prep, and foray into the world of professional upskilling, which segment is dominated by upGrad and Simplilearn.
Great Learning provides higher learning degree, diploma and certificate courses in fields like data science, digital marketing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, in association with recognized universities like MIT, IIT Bombay, Stanford, National University of Singapore, and Great Lakes Institute of Management.
With regard to the other deal, Byju's idea is to establish its hegemony in the ultra-competitive K-12 segment, which is where Toppr had been well established. Unacademy and Vedantu are the main competitors here.
Byju's raised $1.5 billion from a group of funders including UBS Group, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund ADQ, and Blackstone Group LP among others, at a valuation of $16.5 billion.
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