Byju's acquires US edtech firm Epic in US$ 500-million deal

In a US$ 500 million cash-and-stock agreement, education technology company Byju's has acquired Epic, a US-based kids learning platform.

This is the company's second-largest acquisition, following the acquisition of Aakash Institute, a brick-and-mortar teaching network, for almost US$ 1 billion earlier this year.

According to co-founder Byju Mr. Raveendran, the Epic acquisition is part of Byju's entry into the international market, where it forecasts annual sales of US$ 300 million this fiscal year. It paid US$ 120 million for Osmo, a creator of educational games located in the United States, in 2019. Over the next several years, the Bengaluru-based firm plans to invest about US$ 1 billion in North America.

Epic, which was created by Mr. Suren Markosian and Mr. Kevin Donahue, has 50 million members, all of them are youngsters in the United States who have free access to digital books as well as subscriptions. In 2019, Epic had about 20 million users. Mr. Markosian and Mr. Donahue will remain in charge of the company.

Its backers include Evolution Media and Battery Ventures. The deal was not reported by any of these firms.

Mr. Raveendran explained, "It is the largest B2C (business-to-consumer) edtech firm in the K-12 category and has a strong product competency that fits well into our larger strategy of establishing an edtech ecosystem."

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.