Edtech firm Byju’s has acquired WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million as the Indian online learning giant looks to expand its dominant reach in the country. Byju’s India has acquired WhiteHat Jr. in an all-cash deal making the 18-month-old edtech organisation the fastest exit story at this size in the Indian startup ecosystem.
A Byju’s spokesperson said that WhiteHat Jr. will continue to work as a separate entity for now and had raised about $11 million from Omidyar Network, Owl Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. It claims to have achieved an annual revenue run rate of $150 million.
Karan Bajaj, founder of WhiteHat Jr. 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.”
Byju Raveendran, the founder of Byju’s India said it will make “significant investments” in WhiteHat Jr. and hire more teachers to expand it to new markets. WhiteHat Jr. recently announced plans to expand to Canada, U.K., Australia and New Zealand.
Unlike most edtech startups, WhiteHat Jr. assigns one teacher to each student. These classes are live and each session costs about $10. More than 5,000 teachers currently work with WhiteHat Jr.
Raveendran said in a statement, “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. Under his leadership the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time.”
Source: TechCrunch
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