BENGALURU : Byju’s acquired Epic, an online reading platform for kids, for $500 million in a cash-and-stock deal as India’s most valuable internet company takes steps to deepen its presence in the US and expand into other English-speaking markets. The purchase will help the Bengaluru-based online education provider accelerate its overseas expansion plan as well as venture into a new complementary segment—online reading. The transaction follows Byju’s acquiring classroom tutorial chain Aakash Educational Services for $950 million earlier this year. Acquiring Epic will help Byju’s expand its US footprint with access to more than 2 million teachers and 50 million kids in Epic’s existing user base, which more than doubled over the last year due to the pandemic. Byju’s Future School, an online one-on-one live learning platform for math and coding, was released in June, which enabled 11,000 women teachers help students interactively learn these subjects.

Source: Mint July 21, 2021 10:52 UTC