Backed by General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, Silver Lake, Tiger Global and other notable investors, BYJU’S, the global leader in personalized online learning with 100 million students on its platform, has announced a $500M acquisition of Epic, the world’s leading digital reading platform for kids 12 and under.
The acquisition will help expand BYJU’S U.S. footprint by providing access to the more than two million teachers and 50 million kids in Epic’s existing global user-base, which more than doubled over the last year. Suren Markosian, Epic CEO and co-founder Kevin Donahue, will remain in their roles and continue carrying out Epic’s mission to unlock the potential of every child through reading.
Both Epic and BYJU’S strive to create impactful learning experiences and seek to provide more opportunity and value for children, making this acquisition the perfect synergy to propel that for learners in the U.S. Stemming from founder passion on both sides, the two companies share a vision that education is the key to opportunity and that reading inspires curiosity and fuels a child’s love for learning.
Reading fluency is fundamental for academic development because problems with this skill can interfere with a student’s ability to learn other subjects as they make their way through later grades. Instilling the love for reading not only expands the student’s knowledge horizon, but also encourages them to dream, learn and grow.
Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S said, “Our partnership with Epic will enable us to create engaging and interactive reading and learning experiences for children globally. Our mission is to fuel curiosity and make students fall in love with learning. Knowing that Epic and its products are rooted in the same mission, it was a natural fit. Together we have the opportunity to create impactful experiences for children to become life-long learners.”
“We created Epic to make quality books more accessible to kids everywhere, and to build a safe place for them to discover the joy and magic of reading in their own way. The alignment of our missions and shared passion makes BYJU’S the perfect partner, as we’re confident this acquisition will ignite excitement for learning around the world,” said Suren Markosian, CEO and co-founder of Epic. “Together, we can help empower future generations of kids by fostering a lifetime love for reading and learning.”
Anita Kishore, Chief Strategy Officer of BYJU’S said, “Epic’s model for inspiring the next generation through interactive reading is in lockstep with our mission to help millions of children become life-long learners. We welcome Epic’s talented leadership team and employees to the BYJU’S family as we endeavor to help students fall in love with learning across the world.”
BYJU’S has aggressive plans for international and U.S. market expansion, and the acquisition with Epic will not only lead to significant investments in technology that will help to further personalized learning for students, but also enable BYJU’S to become a natural part of America’s learning culture. Similarly, BYJU’S has started to lay the foundation for encouraging a playground of active learning through its synchronous and asynchronous learning programs. BYJU’S Future School, an online one-on-one live learning platform for Math and Coding was released last month which empowered 11,000 women teachers to help students learn these subjects in an engaging and interactive way. BYJU’S acquired Osmo 2 years ago, and the integration has seen Osmo scale 4 times since. BYJU’S has integrated Osmo’s computer vision technology into its products to create a magical hands on learning experience combining the best of the physical and digital worlds.
Already trusted by more than 100 million students worldwide, BYJU’S will invest $1B in North America to accelerate its vision of helping students fall in love with learning.
The news comes on the heels of BYJU’S recent announcement with Disney in the US last month.
