Byju's acquires coding startup Whitehat Jr. for $300M

BYJU'S, one of the world's most-valued edtech startups, announced that it has acquired coding edtech startup Whitehat Jr. for $300 million, making it one of the biggest deals in the edtech space.

This acquisition is expected to help BYJU's with its plans to expand further into the US market. The unicorn is also looking to provide coding programs for kids, which is an area of expertise for WhiteHat Jr.

WhiteHat Jr. Founder Karan Bajaj will continue to lead and scale the business in India and the US.

“WhiteHat Jr. is the leader in the live online coding space. Karan has proven his mettle as an exceptional founder and the credit goes to him and his team for creating coding programs that are loved by kids," Byju's Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran said in a statement.

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"Under Karan's leadership, the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time,” added Byju.

BYJU'S is also looking to make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr.’s technology platform and product innovation while expanding the teacher base to cater to demand from new markets.

WhiteHat Jr. had recently announced its plans to expand to other global markets like Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) after its growth in the US market.

Talking about the acquisition, Karan said, “We started WhiteHat Jr. to make kids creators instead of consumers of technology. Technology is at the centre of every human interaction today and we had set out to create a coding curriculum that was being delivered live and connected students and teachers like never before. Integration with a visionary company such as BYJU’S will help take this idea to new heights and help unleash the remarkable creative potential of kids at a global scale.”

WhiteHat Jr. founded in November 2018 is focussed on helping children between six to 14 years in developing commercial-ready games, animations and apps online using the fundamentals of coding. WhiteHat Jr. offers four levels of courses – Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Professional – for students in grades 1-9.

“Empowering children with the right future skills has always been part of our vision at BYJU’S and coding fits well into this. WhiteHat Jr’s coding product capabilities, combined with our pedagogy, expertise and scale, will help expand our learning offerings for school students,” Byju added.

BYJU'S already has 64 million students on the app, 4.2 million annual paid subscriptions and annual renewal rate of 85 percent. BYJU’S recorded revenue of Rs 2,800 crore in FY 19-20. 

The team added that since the lockdown, BYJU'S has seen over 15 million new students learning on the platform. Last week, when the government of India had announced the New Education Policy, Byju had said:

"The new National Education Policy’s focus on providing students flexibility and furthering digital education is timely and much-needed. We believe that tech-enabled learning is the best way to achieve scale as well as maintain uniform quality irrespective of geography or physical infrastructure availability".