Just four months after previous fund raise, education startup BYJU's in talks to raise $50 million
Education startup Byju’s, which raised $75 million from Sequoia Capital and Sofina in March this year, is planning to raise another $50 million, which will be deployed to fuel international expansion and inorganic growth through global acquisitions.
In an official statement, the company said that BYJU’s Learning App is already profitable in India with month-on-month growth of 15 percent. The revenues for June 2016 stood at Rs 30 crore. The app has crossed five million downloads, has over two lakh paid subscribers, with 30,000 added in the last one month.
The company also claims that a student spends an average time of 40 minutes on the app, in a day.
“We are seeing strong inbound interest from multiple investors over the last few months, thanks to our explosive growth. We are keen to bring in partners who will catalyse the next stage for us. On the other hand, we are humbled by the rising popularity and high engagement for our product with 90-percent annual renewal rates from the students. We are constantly innovating the way in which we make learning accessible, effective, engaging and personalised,” said Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO of BYJU’s Learning App in a prepared statement.
The Bengaluru-based startup founded in 2011 offers learning programmes for students in Class VI-XII and preparation programmes for competitive exams.
The earlier fund-raise by the firm was one of the biggest in the education segment, which is estimated to be worth about $100 billion. The raised funds were used for talent acquisitions, expansion in its product portfolio and also for foraying into global markets. Apart from India, the startup is currently present in Middle East and plans to enter US, the UK and the Commonwealth by end of this year.
Education sector scenario
Reportedly, the edtech segment raised $85 million in the year ended March 31. Last month, Cuemath raised $4 million in Series-A funding from Sequoia India and existing investor Unitus Seed Fund. Cuemath offers a technology platform for women to run home-based learning centres for young students from kindergarten to Class VIII.
The key edtech players in the Indian market include Simplilearn, Embibe, Toppr and EduKart. The education startups, though has witnessed a number of players, has lagged in terms of funding and seeing traction from the market compared to the other hot sectors like food tech or e-commerce.
When the ecosystem is facing serious challenges while raising funds from investors, if BYJU's succeeds in raising this round just four months after raising a hefty amount, it will inevitably have a leg up in the segment and create a buzz across the ecosystem- though needless to say, only the product will set its future.
