UBS's $150 Million would Make Byju's India's Most Valuable Startup

Edtech startup Byju's raises nearly $150 million from UBS Group AG at a valuation of close to $16.5 billion. The funding would make the company India's most-valuable startup. An entity that is part of UBS Asset Management is transforming the investment. The firm has also intended to invest additional money that would take its total investment in Byju's to about $300 million.

The startup is expected to rope in another backer to take the fresh funding to $400 million.

Lately, Byju's raised about $1 billion from Facebook Inc. co-founder Eduardo Saverin's B Capital Group as well as Baron Funds according to the reports received earlier this month citing a person familiar. India's startup industry has been adding unicorns, private companies valued at $1 billion or more, at a rapid pace. The UBS investment would now take the valuation of Byju's past digital payments startup Paytm, which was last valued at $16 billion.

The Bangalore-based startup was established by Byju Raveendran, a former tutor whose parents were also teachers. Byju, 39, owns about a third of the company.

Byju Raveendran states that the pandemic had dramatically altered parents', teachers' and students' acceptance of online learning. The startup's eponymous K-12 app, which brings in the bulk of its revenues, has over 80 million registered users in India who grasp math and science fundamentals through animated games and videos featuring tutor demos.

In recent months, Byju's has quickened the leap of acquisitions including a company teaching one-on-one coding to school goers in markets like the U.S., Latin America and Australia besides India. It bought another that specializes in offline test-prep classes for Indian school graduates aspiring to enter ultra-competitive engineering and medical schools.

After reaping a windfall from the pandemic-fueled online learning boom in its home country, Byju's has hastened its push into international markets by renaming the coding lessons unit Byju's Future School. Its one-on-one coding and math lessons are now available in the U.S., U.K., Australia, as well as Mexico, in Spanish, and in Portuguese in Brazil. It's expanding its subject repertoire to add music, English and the creative arts.