Indian edu-tech startup BYJU’S has once again made headlines for raising an undisclosed amount of funding from China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd.
“BYJU’S has emerged as the clear leader in the Indian education-tech sector. We share BYJU’S mission of transforming education by creating personalised learning experiences for students. We are excited to be partnering with Byju on this exciting journey” said Hongwei Chen, Executive Director of Investment and M&A at Tencent.
The funding will be utilized to accelerate BYJU’S product development for new markets and enable its growth through acquisitions.
“We are excited to have Tencent on board with us. This makes our strong investor portfolio even more diverse,” said Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, Byju’s.
Tenccent is a Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed holding firm that owns a plethora of companies in the media, entertainment and internet commerce space. It also governs China’s Messenger app WeChat. Tencent has also seen several investments in India in startups.
Started by Raveendran in 2011, Byju’s offers visual and text-based study material for students in schools and those preparing for competitive exams. It launched a Byju’s mobile app in 2015, which has since grown to nine million users and 450,000 annual paid subscriptions.
Earlier this month, Byju’s acquired TutorVista and Edurite, two education tech start-ups, from global educations services firm Pearson Plc. TutorVista reportedly gets about 70% of its traffic from the US.
“With increased brand awareness and strong adoption amongst students, this year we expect the revenue to double again and we will be profitable on a full year basis,” Raveendran said in a statement.