Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the state of Qatar, is close to pumping in $200-250 million for about a 5 per cent stake in Indian edtech unicorn Byju’s.
According to a Business Standard report on Monday, the term-sheet has been signed between the two parties on the deal, which will mark QIA’s first investment in an Indian startup. However, it was not clear in the report if any of the existing investors would exit in the process.
The development comes at a time when Byju’s is looking to bolster its international expansion. The company has plans to make its learning app available in the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia by the July-September quarter.
In January, the company had also acquired US-based playful learning system Osmo for $120 million. According to a December TechCrunch report, overseas operations comprise 15 per cent of Byju’s revenue.
Founded in 2008, Byju’s has raised $819.8 million in funding till date.
In March, Byju’s had raised $31 million (Rs 215 crore) in fresh funding from existing investors General Atlantic and Tencent Holdings, according to the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) sourced by paper.vc. The same month, General Atlantic had also injected Rs 33.28 crore (about $4.75 million) in the Indian company.
In December last year, Byju’s had raised $540 million as part of a funding round led by Naspers Ltd, with participation from the likes of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and General Atlantic. The round had valued the Bengaluru-based firm at around $3.6 billion. At that time, Sequoia Capital was reported to have sold its 7 per cent stake in Byju’s for $185-190 million. It, however, continues to hold 13-15 per cent stake in the ed-tech firm, per media reports.
Other investors in the Indian company include Verlinvest, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Aarin Capital among others.
Operated by Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, Byju’s started out as an offline teaching centre in Bengaluru. It launched an app in 2015 to increase its user base. It currently offers two separate learning apps — its flagship app caters to students from Classes VI to XII, while the second targets students of Classes IV and V.
As of March 2019, it had 30 million free users and 2 million paid users.
