Byju’s Pays ₹1,900 Crore To Blackstone Related To Aakash Deal

Byju’s missed the deadline but now it cleared the dues of Blackstone of ₹1,900 Crore ($234 Mn) which was taken during Aakash Institute acquisition at $1 billion.

Byju’s had paid the $234 million it owed Blackstone for the $1 billion purchase of Aakash, resolving one of the complaints made against the Indian edtech company in recent months.

The $22 billion startup with its headquarters in Bengaluru had postponed some payments for the roughly $1 billion purchase of the physical education business last year, citing regulatory approval. 

Prior to the acquisition, Blackstone, which also invests in Byju’s, held around 38% of Aakash.

Also Read: Byju’s to venture into international markets by launching Byju’s Future School

The founder and CEO of the namesake edtech business, Byju Raveendran, told TechCrunch in an interview earlier this month that Byju’s and Blackstone had equally opted to execute the payments later. 

The insider, who asked to remain anonymous because the information is private, claimed that the Indian startup paid the debts this week.

An inquiry for comment on Blackstone and Byju’s was not immediately returned on Friday night.

The Indian startup has spent over $2.5 billion in the last two years to acquire a number of companies, including the American reading platform Epic, the coding suite Tynker, the Indian company Great Learning, the Austrian company GeoGebra, and GradeUp. 

It provides both online and offline studying services to students from primary education through those preparing for competitive college entrance exams.

In the earlier interview, Raveendran disclosed that it had also launched a proposal to buy the publicly traded edtech company 2U.

After a protracted delay, the Indian firm earlier this month disclosed its financial statements for the year ending in March 2021. 

Byju’s reported that for the fiscal year that ended in March 2021, it generated $305.6 million in revenue while increasing its losses to $577.4 million. 

Because of the duration of the consumption period and credit purchases, according to Raveendran, 40% of FY21 revenue was carried over to the following year.