Byju’s continues to amass capital; now raising $200 million two months after securing half a billion

Byju’s latest fundraising is currently underway. The company is seemingly looking to flush itself with as much capital and as soon as possible to fuel its ‘tremendous’ growth that the company claimed it has witnessed during the lockdown. Around two months after raising $500 million from a clutch of investors, the company is now raising $200 million, sources aware of the fundraising told Financial Express Online. The valuation is also set to increase from $11.1 billion in the preceding round to around $12 billion. The investors participating in the round are the US-based investment firms BlackRock and T. Rowe Price, according to the sources. Byju’s competes with Toppr, newly minted SoftBank-backed unicorn Unacademy, Embibe, Meritnation, etc.

Byju’s declined to confirm and comment on the fundraise and valuation. BlackRock and T. Rowe Price also refused to comment.

Excluding the current round, Byju’s has raised $1.12 billion in 2020 and $2.1 billion so far in over 17 funding rounds, according to Crunchbase. The last round of $500 million counted BlackRock, Sands Capital, Alkeon Capital, General Atlantic, Owl Ventures, and Tiger Global among its investors apart from Silver Lake who had led the round. In 2020, the company had secured $200 million in January and February each followed by $100 million in June and $122 million in August. It had also raised funding in June from venture capital firm Bond co-founded by Mary Meeker who was previously a partner at Kleiner Perkins.

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The company had claimed in September that it has “seen tremendous growth in the last few months” adding more than 25 million new students on its app that has more than 70 million registered students and 4.5 million annual paid subscriptions, according to a company statement. It had also launched a tutoring program called Byju’s Classes to cater to the after-school learning of students. The market value of online education in India is expected to grow from $250 million in 2016 to $1.96 billion in 2021 even as the segment has seen increased adoption by parents for students during the Covid-induced lockdown in the past eight months.

This story was updated with replies from BlackRock and T. Rowe Price.