- India-based educational learning app company Byju’s announced that it has acquired WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million in an all-cash deal
India-based educational learning app company Byju’s announced that it has acquired WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million in an all-cash deal, according to TechCrunch. WhiteHat Jr. is an education-based company that focuses on teaching coding to young kids. WhiteHat Jr. went from launching to selling in 18 months, making it one of the fastest startup exits in India.
WhiteHat Jr. raised about $11 million from Omidyar Network, Owl Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners. And the company hit an annual revenue run rate of $150 million. Going forward, it will continue to operate as a separate entity for now said a Byju’s spokesperson in an interview with TechCrunch.
“We started WhiteHat Jr. to make kids creators instead of consumers of technology,” said Karan Bajaj, founder of WhiteHat Jr. “Technology is at the center of every human interaction today and we had set out to create a coding curriculum that was being delivered live and connected students and teachers like never before.”
Byju’s — which was founded by CEO Byju Raveendran — said that his company will make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr. and hire more teachers in order to expand it to new markets. Recently, WhiteHat Jr. announced plans to expand to Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
WhiteHat Jr. assigns one teacher to each student. The classes are live and each of the sessions are priced at about $10. Over 5,000 teachers currently work with WhiteHat Jr.
“WhiteHat Jr is the leader in the live online coding space. Karan has proven his mettle as an exceptional founder and the credit goes to him and his team for creating coding programs that are loved by kids. Under his leadership the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time,” added Raveendran in a statement.
Byju’s raised about $1.5 billion in total funding so far. And Byju’s was last valued at about $10.5 billion based on the company’s latest funding round.
