Byju's continues to rack up more funds, this time from three new US investors

Byju's education technology company said it signed three new US investors — the world's largest wealth manager, a hedge fund, BlackRock, Sands Capital and Alkeon Capital — to its long list of supporters as it continues to collect cash gobs during an online education boom.

The investment is part of an ongoing funding round announced earlier this month under the leadership of US private equity major Silver Lake, which made news in India earlier this year by joining Reliance Jio's mega fundraising.

According to a source, Byju's valuation has jumped to US$11.1 billion, up from US$10.8 billion, when it announced its latest US$500 million funding round led by Silver Lake earlier this month. Existing investors General Atlantic, Owl Ventures and Tiger Global were also participating in the new round.

Byju's Mr Raveendran stated, “We are excited to welcome Blackrock, Sands Capital and Alkeon as our partners. Partnerships like these reaffirm our commitment to build and transform the global learning landscape through technology, innovation and quality pedagogy.”

Byju's, which until the end of 2019 had raised a total of about $916 million, appears to have raised close to or more than that in 2020 alone. The value has also risen from $5.7 billion in July 2019, to around $11.1 billion at present.

As per Byju, it has added >25 million new students to its platform since the start of the lockdown, taking its base of users to 70 million, including 4.5 million paid subscribers. Byju’s is aiming to utilise the fresh investments for inorganic growth and enter lucrative markets such as the US.

Last month, the company announced the $300 million acquisition of WhiteHat Jr, a network that teaches students to code in the K-12 space and wider edtech market, an increasingly growing segment. Last year, Osmo, an edtech start-up based in the US, was also acquired to get its foot in the door in that market.

Byju also acquired Hubli-based LabInApp last week, a startup that produces virtual simulations of science experiments, an in-demand solution at a time when schools are closed, and science laboratories are not open to students.

A $150 million investment round led by SoftBank Vision Fund at a valuation of $1.45 billion was recently revealed by Rival Unacademy. Also, the executive education business Eruditus recently raised $113 million led by Leeds Illuminate and Prosus Ventures, the South African internet giant, along with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan's philanthropic fund Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). CZI is also an investor in Byju’s, while Facebook is an investor in Unacademy.

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