Education Technology start-up Byju
has acquired global education company Pearson Plc.’s TutorVista and Edurite for
an undisclosed amount, in a move aimed at expanding global reach as well as
offerings for students.
TutorVista gets about 70% of the
traffic on its website from the US. Pearson in 2009 acquired a 17% stake in
Bangalore-headquartered TutorVista and in January 2011 purchased another 59%
stake for Rs577 crore. It increased its controlling stake to 80% from 76% in
the same year. In February 2013, it acquired the remaining 20%.
TutorVista operates in four
business segments-online tutorials; digital content and information and
communication technologies for schools; test preparation and offline coaching
to students; and the management of K-12 schools. TutorVista had acquired
Edurite in 2007. Today, Edurite sells educational CDs and DVDs.
Byju has been one of the few growth
stage start-ups to have raised multiple rounds of funds in 2016, apart from
food tech start-up Swiggy (Bundl Technologies Pvt. Ltd). The company raised
about $75 million from Sequoia Capital and Belgian family office Sofina in March
2016. In September, Byju raised $50 million in a round led by Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative, becoming the first Asian investment for the personal fund set up by
Facebook Inc. founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan. In December,
the company raised another $15 million from World Bank arm International
Finance Corp.
No comments:
Post a Comment