Byju's $100 million Doubtnut bridge to Bharat

In FY 2019, Doubtnut had revenues of just over $23,000. A little over a year later, it is being acquired by Byju's for $100 million. What made Byju's splash the cash?

India’s biggest edtech Byju’s wants to acquire newbie startup Doubtnut, say reports. The deal will push Doubtnut’s valuation to over $100 million

One is a massive sales engine of expensive supplementary homework tools. The other is a no-frills, free doubt solving platform

It’s an unlikely match. Doubtnut needs to monetise its user base. Byju’s needs to diversify it

The deal represents benefits to both companies but are these enough to justify a $100mn price tag?

We believe we are on the path to becoming the biggest edtech app in India, Tanushree Nagori, the co-founder of Doubtnut, told The Ken in August 2019.

Doubtnut, an app-based platform to solve doubts from grade 6 all the way up to competitive exams, had taken off like a rocket ship. It had just raised Rs 3.3 crore ($436,000) in a funding round led by Sequoia Surge India in April 2019, and crossed 7 million monthly active users (MAU) within two years of operations. Only Indian edtech giants Byju’s and Unacademy had more MAUs.

AUTHOR

Olina Banerji

Based in Delhi, Olina writes about mega-trends in urban mobility, education, skilling and the environment, with a focus on how institutions and innovations can help cities grow sustainably. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics, and has worked previously with India Today and global non-profit Ashoka.

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