WhiteHat Jr, India’s fastest growing EdTech startup today announced its acquisition by BYJU’s in a $300 million all cash deal. The move will combine WhiteHat Jr’s strong leadership in live online teaching with BYJU’s and mark the coming together of two leading players in the EdTech space. Beyond the secondary exit, BYJU’S will make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr’s technology platform, product innovation while expanding the teacher base to cater to demand from new markets.
WhiteHat Jr. Founder, Karan Bajaj will continue to lead and scale this business in India and the US. WhiteHat has grown to record revenues in just 18 months of launch and in this time.
“We started WhiteHat Jr. to make kids creators instead of consumers of technology,” explains Karan Bajaj, Founder, WhiteHat Jr. “Technology is at the centre of every human interaction today and we had set out to create a coding curriculum that was being delivered live and connected students and teachers like never before. Integration with a visionary company such as BYJU’S will help take this idea to new heights and help unleash the remarkable creative potential of kids at a global scale.”
“WhiteHat Jr is the leader in the live online coding space. Karan has proven his mettle as an exceptional founder and the credit goes to him and his team for creating coding programs that are loved by kids. Under his leadership the company has achieved phenomenal growth in India and the US in a short span of time.” said Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S
Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners said “It has been our privilege to partner with Karan and Team WhiteHat Jr from the concept stage to a category creating company. WhiteHat Jr has done a path breaking job in scaling a platform to teach kids to code online with quality learning outcomes, which was seen as a very difficult endeavour when the company started. This deal represents another milestone in the Indian consumer technology landscape. Congratulations to Karan, Byju and teams on this partnership and wish them continued success.”
WhiteHat Jr had recently announced their plans to expand in other global markets like Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) after a stellar growth in the US for its one-to-one online coding classes. After launching their courses in the US since February this year, the company is growing at 160% MoM in the country.
With this acquisition, existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and co-investors will be exiting their investments in tranches. Nexus Venture Partners had led the seed funding in WhiteHat Jr at a concept stage in November 2018 and co-led Series A round last year.
Founded in November 2018, WhiteHat Jr. helps kids aged 6 to 14 years build commercial-ready games, animations and apps online using the fundamentals of coding. WhiteHat Jr. offers four levels of courses – Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Professional – for students in grades 1-9. Kids create complex games, animations and apps using logic, structure, sequence, commands and algorithmic thinking—in a live 1:1 online classroom. Early graduates of the course have created professional-ready apps downloadable on the App Store at ages as young as seven years old.
About WhiteHat Jr.
Founded in 2018 by ex-Discovery Networks CEO Karan Bajaj, WhiteHat Jr. makes kids creators in the new world with the world’s first structured coding curriculum for early childhood. The platform harnesses the natural creativity of kids with coding tools to help them create professional-ready digital products of global impact. All classes are taught Live 1:1 online in the comfort of your home by Top 99.9th percentile of certified teachers.