Indian edtech giant Byju’s raises $250 million Through Structured Debt Issuance

Indian edtech major Byju’s has reportedly raised $250 million through structured debt issuance to Davidson Kempner Capital Management – a New York headquartered investment firm. The company raised money through a mix of non-convertible debentures and compulsorily convertible debentures – with the upside in the latter linked to the IPO valuation of Aakash – one of Byju’s subsidiaries slated to go public.

The company is close to securing an additional $700 million. The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, India’s most valuable, is finalizing the remainder of the capital from a sovereign fund, the people said. That capital, expected to arrive in two weeks, will come into the startup as part of a convertible note that caps the valuation at $22 billion.

Byju’s has maintained its $22 billion valuation throughout the past year even as numerous high-profile startups globally have had severe corrections in their value. The large financing round in Byju’s comes at a time when the Indian startup ecosystem is reeling from a funding crunch amid weakening global economy.

The startup — which prepares students pursuing undergraduate and graduate-level courses, and in recent years has expanded to serve all school-going students — has amassed 150 million users who use its learning app while hundreds of thousands of students visit the firm’s brick-and-mortar centers.

Byju’s, like many other edtechs, benefited from the lockdown as more parents explored digital supplements to continue their kids’ education. The startup spent more than $2.5 billion in the past two and a half years to acquire startups globally as the Indian firm expanded and broadened its offerings in several international markets, Prosus Ventures, a backer of Byju’s, disclosed in a filing last year.

Byju’s has faced a lot of controversies over the last couple of years amid reports of toxic work culture which promotes misselling. The company has meanwhile grown to become India’s biggest edtech company through a flurry of acquisitions.

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