Byju’s in Talks With Lenders for $1 Billion Funding, Sources Say
(Bloomberg) -- Byju's, India's most valuable startup, is in talks with lenders to raise more than $1 billion in acquisition financing as the online education provider looks to expand its business rapidly, people familiar with the matter said.
The Bangalore-based market leader is in talks with banks, including Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co., for the funding to acquire another edtech company, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. They didn't disclose details of the acquisition target and said that the terms of the transaction and the funding are yet to be finalized.
Byju's, led by former teacher Byju Raveendran, has been on a shopping binge in the US and elsewhere in recent years and bought out startups offering coding lessons, professional learning courses, and test prep classes for competitive Indian exams. The startup was valued at $22 billion with fund raising this year and is working on its initial public offering plans, Bloomberg reported earlier this year.
Representatives for Byju's and JPMorgan declined to comment about the financing. Morgan Stanley representative didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The platform's app has been downloaded more than 150 million times and on average, customers spend an average71 minutes the app every day, according to information available on its website. The company formally called Think & Learn Pvt. education, has prominent global investors, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers Ltd., Tiger Global Management, and Sequoia Capital India.
The popularity of online classes had soared in the country of almost 1.4 billion people with one of the world's youngest population after schools and tutoring centers were forced to shut their doors during the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing parents, teachers and students to look for alternative learning resources. Byju's has also expanded its product portfolio to include one-to-one learning with teachers in India and elsewhere tutoring school children across the globe in countries including US, UK, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico and Australia.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Talking Points This Week: Leadership Shock At Nvidia, Earnings Strength, And The Fog Over Hormuz
The Anthropic IPO pricing and first trading day, Nvidia's upcoming earnings, and any fresh signals from Iran will set the tone for the following week.
-
Signature Play: The Classic Cocktail Is Dead. Or Is It?
Classic cocktails are disappearing from India's cocktail menus. But they're still being ordered, taught to bartenders and borrowed from. So, who's really having the last drink?
-
A New Samvat Wishlist: Inclusive Prosperity And Human Development
India has strengthened its economic foundations through infrastructure, digital access and enterprise. Its next growth chapter must deepen productivity, create better livelihoods and widen participation in prosperity.
-
Love, Sex Aur Dhokha: The Audacious Plot To Spy On Jensen Huang
A Taipei dinner, a Singapore chip buyer and a suspected Chinese asset: inside the alleged spy operation that got close to NVIDIA's Jensen Huang.
-
Ten Things I Learnt This Samvat
Patience can be a trap. Cheap stocks can stay cheap. Leverage can wipe you out. What did Samvat 2082 teach us? Niraj Shah writes on 10 lessons from the year gone by.
-
Talking Points This Week: Tech Nerves, FII Buying, And A Faraway Banking Shock
The global markets are not shining this Diwali. The exception in the large markets is, India.
-
Midterm Rally Lasted A Day. The Hard Reality Of A Divided US May Last Two Years | Opinion
Between a contested AI boom, a debt ceiling that arrives in 2027 and a president with every incentive to act alone, the next two years may prove more volatile than the first day's rally suggests.
-
Blue Wave Will Derail the AI Trade but Won't Dismantle the AI Era | Unhedged Position
The Democrats' sweep of the US Congress will see politics collide with economic forces both over the long and short term.
-
It's Time To Take The GST Council's Bet On Trust Global
Payment records can prove India's services exports, and clear, proportionate rules can bring foreign digital sellers into the tax net.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
