WhiteHat Jr. acquisition will help scale offerings to new countries: Byju’s CEO

With learning from home becoming the new normal, top edtech firm Byju’s has doubled down on its business, raising capital and acquiring WhiteHat Jr for USD 300 million. WhiteHat Jr is a startup focussing on online coding classes for kids. The deal gives Byju's an entry into a promising and early segment in Indian education.

In an interview to LiveMint, Byju Raveendran, CEO, Byju’s, said that there is a huge opportunity to scale this product not just in India, but in foreign markets as well.

"Coding is an important future skill that goes hand-in-hand with mathematics and other subjects. As part of our international expansion plans, we will be able to scale our offerings to new countries with the WhiteHat Jr. acquisition," Raveendran said.

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At present, coding skills are not part of the larger curriculum in schools in India. However, this is expected to change soon, he said.

When asked if the company will allocate a large part of the recently raised capital for M&As, Raveendran said, "We have been very watchful about our approach on M&As. If a potential acquisition or merger fits into our strategy, brand vision, and demographics, then we will surely examine it."

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In future, we will look at companies that fit into our long-term vision of helping students get access to different online learning formats, he added.

Speaking about the growing popularity of edtech sector, the Byju's CEO said that owing to large market opportunity across all segments and age groups, most ed-tech companies will grow faster than before.

"There are not many large edtech companies in India yet. Since the acceptance of online learning is better than before, there is still room for growth in certain edtech segments," Raveendran said.

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Talking about the company's IPO plans, he said that Byju's has the option to do an Initial Public Offering, but the exact timeline has not been decided yet.

"We aspire to create a large public company. However, we don't need to do that just to give an exit to early investors. We have a profitable business model that is generating net cash flow," he added.

Meanwhile, DST Global, the investment firm led by Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner, is in advanced talks to lead a USD 400 million round in online education firm Byju’s at a valuation of USD 10.5 billion, two people aware of the matter said.

Byju’s is currently the second-highest valued startup in India after payments firm Paytm. In June, it raised an undisclosed amount from US-based BOND Capital at a valuation of USD 10.5 billion.