Learning start-up Byju's buys TutorVista, Edurite from Pearson

Byju's, the mobile learning startup, has acquired TutorVista and Edurite from Pearson as it expands its offerings to school students in the US and UK.

The Bengaluru-based firm did not disclose the financials of the deal, but pointed out it would provide access to newer markets.

“We believe a product like ours can change the way students learn all across the world. We have started creating similar products for the international market,” said Byju's founder and chief executive Byju Raveendran in a statement.

TutorVista is one of the largest and best-known online tutoring brands catering to school and college students in the US. TutorVista, which was built by serial investors K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh, was bought by Pearson for over Rs 600 crore in 2011. As Pearson faces challenges in building its education business, it is hiving off non-profitable ventures.

“Edurite and TutorVista are pioneer brands in their respective spaces and enjoy great customer goodwill. We are pleased that a leading online education company in India sees value in the businesses, brands and employees. We hope that the businesses and employees thrive under the new ownership and wish them all the very best,” said Deepak Mehrotra, managing director of Pearson India. 

Byju's expects to be a start-up with a billion dollar valuation and plans to turn profitable this year with over 400,000 students using its paid app on their smartphones.

Since launching its multimedia app in August 2015, Byju's said it had been downloaded 8 million times.  Byju's has converted over 5 per cent of its users to pay for the content to reach a revenue of Rs 260 crore last year.

The app offers learning programmes for students in Classes IV-XII and those preparing for competitive exams such as the IIT-JEE, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT.

The firm has raised $204 million from nine investors, including Sequoia Capital, Light Speed Ventures and Aarin Capital, according to Crunchbase data.