Byju’s pays Blackstone $234 million related to Aakash deal: Report

Blackstone Inc. has received a payment from Byju’s of 19 billion rupees ($234 million), made on Thursday, for a 38% investment in the learning centre network Aakash that Blackstone now owns.

According to a source intimately involved in the transaction, Byju’s paid Blackstone Inc. $234 million to settle its debts owed to the private equity firm as part of a $950 million deal to purchase Aakash Educational.

The payment made on Thursday was for a 38% or so stake in the learning centre network that Byju’s acquired in April 2021 that was controlled by Blackstone.

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According to the source, Byju’s paid all of Aakash’s owners throughout the closing process with the exception of Blackstone because the PE company had agreed to deferred payment.

An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Blackstone.

The payment of debts coincides with the popular edu-tech firm in India, which was recently valued at $22 billion, suffering sharply increasing losses.

backed by Tiger Global For the fiscal year that ended in March 2021, Byju’s losses grew significantly to 45.64 billion rupees ($574.06 million), while its revenue decreased by 3%. View More

The pandemic-induced spike in demand for online education benefited the company greatly, and it attracted investments from some of the top venture capital funds and financiers, including Sequoia Capital and Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, to finance its astronomical rate of expansion.

Byju’s, a company that came to represent the success of Indian startups, spent a total of $2.5 billion to acquire businesses including Aakash, Epic, a company based in the United States, Tynker, a platform for kids to learn how to code, Great Learning, and Toppr.