BYJU’s all set to acquire another edtech for $600 Million
Indian multinational edtech decacorn BYJU'S recently confirmed the acquisition of bootstrapped skilling startup Great Learning for $600 million.
Great Learning will continue to operate as an independent unit under the BYJU’S Group, under the leadership of Founder and CEO Mohan Lakhamraju and Co-founders Hari Nair and Arjun Nair.
With this significant investment, Great Learning aims to pace up its organic and inorganic growth in India and across global markets.
This is as great a deal for employees as it is for founders. Employees are seeing a value of $100 million across the board which includes what they get now in the form of cash, ESOPs, and the future earnout.
Close to 25 percent of the company, housing 1200 employees, is owned by the employees themselves and more than 120 people have ESOPs in the company.
"We were fortunate enough to be able to have a large ESOP pool and that's why this is happening. We have been able to reward the long-term commitment and dedication of our employees. No employee of the top 4 levels has left the company till now.," says Mohan, the CEO of the lucky startup.
Great Learning crossed the revenue run rate of $100 million in Financial Year 2021. The company concluded FY20 with booked revenue of Rs 325 crore which means growth of close to 150 percent from FY19. The company's user base has also widened ten-fold in FY21.
Founded in 2013, Great Learning has over 1.5 million students who spend 60 million hours learning on the platform and is among India’s top three higher-education startups today.
The acquisitions and liquidity events like this have always worked out well for committed employees. For instance, the employees could cash out 10 percent of their vested stock options at $125 to $135 apiece during the Flipkart-Walmart deal.
