Reliance-Owned Embibe Acquires Edtech Rival Funtoot

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited’s (RIL) subsidiary Embibe has acquired 90.5% stake in Bengaluru-based edtech startup Funtoot for a cash consideration of INR 71.64 Cr.

Embibe is also planning to make another INR 10 Cr investment into Funtoot by December 2021, to acquire 100% shares, provided the Bengaluru-based company achieves certain milestones.

Founded in 2010 by Rajeev Pathak, Funtoot is an edtech startup that optimises science and mathematics learning for K-12 students based on their understanding of problems and speed. It focusses on personalised learning, step-by-step analysis, contextual assistance and rewarding successes.

Funtoot, which only has operations in India, claims that it helps a student get a strong grasp on fundamentals, rather than rote learning or “meaningless” facts. Moreover, it claims to enable students towards self-correction of learning gaps and developing higher thinking thanks to its contextual assistance.

Embibe, which was founded in 2012 by Aditi Avasthi, is also an edtech company and leverages AI-based data analytics to personalise learning outcomes. It targets students across K-12, higher education, professional skilling, vernacular languages and all curriculum categories across India and abroad.

With this acquisition, Embibe said it wants to optimise its platform to improve the experience for students. Back in 2015, the Reliance-owned company also acquired 100Mark, a student guidance platform for JEE Main, Advanced and Medical entrance exams.

Embibe has followed on Reliance’s footsteps when it comes to scaling up its tech or services.  While the company has evaluated more than 33 deals so far in the last 10 years, in 2019 alone it made 8 acquisitions. Reliance agreed to invest over $180 Mn into Embibe over the next three years in 2018.

This was dubbed as one of the biggest acquisition bids in the edtech and deeptech space in India. The company’s previous investors included Kalaari Capital and Lightbox.

Reliance acquired 51.78% stake in Bengaluru-based drone startup Asteria for INR 23.12 Cr, last week. Just like the Embibe-Funtoot deal, Reliance also announced that it will be investing an additional amount by December 2021 to acquire higher stake in the company, if it manages to achieve certain targets. However, In Asteria’s case, the company was planning to invest $125 Cr more to take its equity share up to 87.3%.

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