South African investor, Naspers led a $540 million investment in EdTech start-up, BYJU’S – the creator of the most popular K-12 learning app in India. That brings the company’s value to $3.6 billion.
The investment will increase BYJU’S’ development of tech learning products, and also, its expansion into international markets.
Naspers is known for funding Tencent, Udemy, Codecademy and Brainly. The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) offered “a significant portion” of the round, according to an announcement made about the deal. In addition, the deal included some secondary share sales.
This round grosses Byju’s total funding to $775 million from investors to date. Its backers include Tencent, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, General Atlantic, IFC, Lightspeed Ventures and Times Internet.
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BYJU’S Learning App provides tailored learning programmes for students in 4th-12th grades in India, combining videos, teaching, and interactive lessons.
The deal makes the company India’s fourth highest-valued tech start-up behind only Paytm, Ola and OYO. Founded in 2008 by Byju Raveendran as on offline teaching center, it moved into digital courses as recently as 2015. The company specializes in grades 4-12 educational courses that use a combination of videos and other materials. Besides courses, the service covers exams, free courses and paid-for courses.
BYJU’s claims to have registered over 30 million students, while more than two million customers have signed up for an annual paid subscription to date.