Bengaluru-based malayali Byju Raveendran founded, edu-tech company Byju’s announced the acquisition of WhiteHat Jr. According to industry trackers, the acquisition of the Mumbai based ed-tech by the country’s leading learning solution platform was for $300million, an all-cash deal. WhiteHat Jr. Founder, Karan Bajaj will continue to lead and scale this business in India and the US.

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. The company offers four levels of courses – beginner, intermediate, advanced, and professional – for students in grades 1-9.

The buyout comes at a time when the government and educational institutions are pushing for online education. Due to the global pandemic Covid-19 the education sector in the country is undergoing a significant change and digital or online way of catering school education is slowly gaining momentum.

WhiteHat Jr. provides, a unique coding platform for kids starting from the class one to 12th standard. “With coding fast emerging as a key skill for the future, this integration will help BYJU’S further expand its offerings in India,” the company said in a media release. The new acquisition is also likely to boost the acquisition plans of Byju’s which is trying to widen its presence in the US too.

A few experts also believe that with the Union government pushing skills such as coding from early classes with the New Education Policy (NEP) 2020.

As per the release from the company, “After the acquisition, it will make significant investments in WhiteHat Jr’s technology platform, product innovation while expanding the teacher base to cater to demand from new markets.”

“We started WhiteHat Jr. to make kids creators’ instead of consumers of technology,” said Karan Bajaj, Founder, WhiteHat Jr. “Technology is at the center 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,” he added.

“Empowering children with the right future skills has always been part of our vision at Byju’s and coding fits well into this. WhiteHat Jr’s coding product capabilities, combined with our pedagogy, expertise, and scale, will help expand our learning offerings for school students,” said Byju Raveendran, Founder & CEO, BYJU’S

WhiteHat Jr had recently announced their plans to expand to other global markets like Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand (ANZ). After launching their courses in the US, since February this year, the company is growing at more than 100 per cent M-o-M in the country.

Launched in 2015, Byju’s has a revenue of Rs. 2800 crore in FY 19-20.

Meanwhile, a recent survey released by Byju’s said that there has been a significant shift in the mindset of Indian parents towards online learning.

About 70 per cent of parents revealed that their children used online learning for the first time during the lockdown. 75 per cent parents surveyed said they want their children to continue learning through online channels/mediums even after schools reopen

The survey, conducted in June 2020, received over 5000 responses from parents across 18 cities who had at least one child studying in K-12.