Mary Meeker’s BOND Capital Invests In Edtech Unicorn BYJU’S

Update: July 27, 2020 | 16: 55 PM

In a regulatory filing with the ministry of corporate affairs on July 27, BYJU’S recorded an approval to raise $23 Mn with 8,070 Series F preference shares at face value of INR 10 from Bond Capital Asia Holdings Limited. The Company needs funds to meet the working capital and business expansion plans.

Bengaluru-based edtech startup BYJU’S has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Mary Meeker’s BOND Capital. The company didn’t specify how it would be utilising the funds. 

In a media statement, Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, BYJU’S said, “This partnership is a testament to the role that BYJU’S is playing in helping students learn better by customizing our platform to their abilities. It also demonstrates the rising global interest in education technology as digital learning becomes increasingly accepted and embraced.” 

Founded in 2008 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran, BYJU’S offers a learning app, which was launched in 2015 and has learning programmes for students in classes IV-XII along with courses to help students prepare for competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE, and GMAT.

The company has raised $1.4 Bn till date from investors such as General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Tencent, Naspers, Qatar Investment Authority, and Canada’s Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) among others. It was last valued at $8 Bn in the undisclosed funding round from General Atlantic in February 2020.

As of now, BYJU’s has over 57 Mn registered users and around 3.5 Mn paid subscribers. The company claims to have annual renewal rates of 85%. BYJU’S claims to have doubled its revenue from INR 1430 Cr in FY19 to INR 2800 Cr in FY20.

Talking about Covid-19 crisis, Raveendran said that this crisis has brought online learning to the forefront and has helped parents, teachers and students alike to experience and understand the value of it. “We have the opportunity to positively influence how teachers teach, students learn and school’s function. The ‘Classrooms of Tomorrow’ will have technology at the core, empowering students to cross over from passive to active learning. The result will be a combination of the best of both online and offline educational offerings,” he added.

Mary Meeker, general partner at BOND and famed Wall Street analyst and venture capitalist, said, “Endorsed by millions of students, BYJU’S has emerged as a clear leader in education technology. We are excited to support a visionary like Byju and his team in their quest to continue to innovate and shape the future of education.”

It is to be noted that in the lockdown period, BYJU’s has started three new features — live classes, teaching new subjects such as history, civics and geography and launching the application in vernacular languages.

Mary Meeker in her Internet Trends 2019 report said that BYJU’S number of paying students between the ages of 9-17, had crossed over 1.5 Mn in March 2019 from the 1 Mn mark in the last financial year.

Over the last year, the company’s fundraising has focused on international expansion. The expansion to the Middle East, the US, the UK, South Africa, and other African and Commonwealth market have been on the cards. BYJU’S had forayed into the US with the acquisition of Osmo, a US-based learning platform in January 2019.

Right from the very first week of the lockdown in India, edtech platforms moved to capitalise on the growth wave and it resulted in an unprecedented spike in user registrations and time spent on online learning platforms. According to DataLabs By Inc42, Indian online learning market is expected to be worth $1.96 Bn by 2021. This sudden shift from classroom education to online has increased the user registrations for all edtech platforms.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.