Keeping up with its acquisition juggernaut, Byju’s has now acquired U.S. based kids coding platform Tynker. The edtech decacorn did not disclose the financial details of the deal. Tynker is the second American startup acquired by Byju’s in the space of nearly two months. The deal also marks Byju’s nineth acquisition in the current year. Byju’s has roughly splurged over $2 Bn for acquiring these nine companies.
The Bengaluru based startup’s acquisition spree has been spurred by its recent funding juggernaut, having raised more than $1 Bn through multiple funding rounds over the last one year. But the decacorn startup is still not done with its funding spree. According to the reports, it is in talks to raise nearly $1.5 bn at an estimated valuation of $21 Bn. The company is currently valued at $16.5 Bn, partially higher than the IPO bound Paytm.
Byju’s is also vying for an IPO listing but grapevines claim that it may opt for US listing rather than listing in the Indian capital market. Last month, reports had emerged that Byju’s Raveendran led company is working to accelerate the IPO plan and may list the company next year at an eye-popping valuation of $50 Bn.
Tynker is Byju’s second acquisition in the kids coding space. Its first acquisition in this space was Whitehat Jr, which it acquired last year for whopping $300 Mn in an all cash deal. However, this year Whitehat Jr went through rough times in the wake of barrage of defamation cases due to controversial ads run by the company. Following this controversy, Whitehat Jr’s founder Karan Bajaj recently exited the company.
Tynker was founded by Krishna Vedati, Srinivas Mandyam and Kelvin Chong in 2012 in Mount View, California. The startup claims that over 60 MN kids and 10,000 schools over 150 countries use its platform.