Edtech Unicorn Byju's Set To Acquire Rival Toppr For $150 Mn The two companies have been undergoing negotiations for over two months and are likely to announce the takeover soon, the report said
By Prabhjeet Bhatla •
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Bengaluru-based e-learning startup, Byju's, is close to signing a deal to acquire competitor Toppr Technologies Pvt. in a transaction valued at roughly $150 million, according to the report.
Toppr provides online learning materials to students in grades five through twelve and its backers include SAIF Partners and Helion Ventures.
Byju's has been expanding assertively in recent months to capture the surge in demand for online education triggered by the pandemic.
In January, it agreed to a $1 billion deal to acquire brick-and-mortar test prep leader Aakash Educational Services Ltd.
Founded in 2011, the company spent the latter half of 2020 raising capital from notable names including Mary Meeker and Yuri Milner. Two separate funding rounds in September, led by Silver Lake and BlackRock, respectively, valued the startup at $11 billion, the report said.
Mumbai-based Toppr takes an app-based approach to education with video classes, mock tests, and revision cards reminiscent of Instagram Stories and live support for students stuck on a question. It provides its services internationally and counts more than 16 million students, according to its website. Paid subscribers are a fraction of that. It started a code-tutoring unit called Codr last summer, it further said.
Since last year, there has been a strong interest of investors in the edtech space. Almost every company has raised money in 2020. Toppr was no exception, but it wasn't able to attract new investors. Its Series D round led by Foundation Holdings saw participation from only one existing investor: Kaizen Private Equity.
