Byju’s Founder and CEO Byju Raveendran
Indian edutech unicorn gets fresh investment
The story: India’s edutech unicorn Byju’s has raised a new round of funding.
Investors: Silver Lake, Tiger Global, General Atlantic and Owl Ventures.
More details: Since the lockdown, the app has seen over 20 million new students start learning from its platform for free. Today, the app has over 64 million registered students and 4.2 million annual paid subscriptions.
As per Crunchbase, Byju’s has raised US$1.6 billion from over 20 investors to date, including Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), a fund launched by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan.
Also Read: Why edutech is becoming an investor favourite this season
Last month, Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr., a Mumbai-based coding platform. With coding fast emerging as a key skill for the future, this integration will also accelerate Byju’s international expansion plans.
Launcho Ventures launches startup studio in Singapore
The story: Launcho Ventures has announced the launch of a new venture studio in Southeast Asia.
The objective: Based in Singapore, it seeks to fund, build and scale successful companies across the region by identifying and transforming ideas with viable business cases into independent companies through collaboration with entrepreneurs and skilled professionals.
Companies are created in-house through internal ideation as well as co-created with other world class founders in the region.
How it is different: Unlike an accelerator or incubator, entrepreneurs bring an idea to Launcho very early on and they are given the resources they need to build enduring businesses. With an experienced team, they will work closely together to evolve the idea into a robust strategy, validate the concept with research, build an MVP and go on to launch and then successfully scale the venture.
Launcho will provide funding and hands-on support from an experienced team of successful entrepreneurs.
Also Read: How startup studio T9L plans to help startups use their runway more effectively
Who is behind Launcho: Its founding partner Martin Berry is a successful founder, having built and sold companies with values in excess of US$600 million and has gone on to make over 50 venture investments in early-stage technology companies to date.
He founded Gong Cha Korea in 2012, acquired its parent company Royal Tea Taiwan in 2016, and went on to scale the Gong Cha brand globally to 18 countries and 2,000 outlets worldwide.
Key features of Launcho studio:
- Founder salary of S$3,500 per month throughout the duration of the programme
- Free office space at Launcho Ventures
- Unlimited access to the Launcho Ventures team and network to work side-by-side in building and launching the venture.
- Funding of up to S$300,000, with the potential for further follow-on funding based on KPIs.
- A milestone-driven programme rather than a time-driven one — allowing sufficient time for founders to prove their concept and potential opportunity to pivot.
OctiFi launches buy-now-pay-later app in Singapore
The story: Fintech startup OctiFi launched a buy-now, pay-later financing platform to the Singapore market today.
The objective: The company aims to streamline financing by bringing its solutions to all sales channels: be it offline, online, traditional, small, large or even live-commerce.
Also Read: 500 Startups invests in buy-now-pay-later services startup Split
What is the app about?: OctiFi offers consumers the option to pay an interest-free instalment over a given period, after which they can earn further cashback rewards for paying before the due date. The service benefits both online and offline merchants, such as traditional retailers and service providers.
With more than 30 companies already using the service, OctiFi has successfully market-tested the service and plans to offer its service to the wider Singapore market.
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Image Credit: Byju’s
The post In brief: Silver Lake invests in Byju’s; Launcho Ventures launches startup studio in S’pore appeared first on e27.