The creator of BYJU. India’s largest personalized learning app for grades four to 12 (valued at US$3.6 billion), has acquired American kids edtech and AR company Osmo for US$120 million. This is BYJU’s first US acquisition.
The two companies will now set about integrating their technology to create new offerings, bringing Osmo’s mixed-reality tech into BYJU’s app. The buy will also make it easier for the Indian edtech company to grow internationally, which it plans to do aggressively over the next year.
Launched in 2015, BYJU’s learning app offers programs more than 30 million students, and it has cracked two million annual paid subscribers. It creates personalized learning plans for each student based on their proficiency levels and capabilities. The company has been growing at 100% for three years straight and is set to triple its revenue to US$250 million in 2019.
Osmo, meanwhile, was created in 2013 by former Google engineers who were able to seccure US$32.5 million in funding from Mattel, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Collab+Sesame. Since then, it has launched an augmented reality Hot Wheels game in partnership with Mattel, and an animation studio for kids (pictured) in partnership with Disney.