Byju’s highest-profile acquisition, WhiteHat Jr, is set to close

Salman SH

Edtech unicorn Byju’s is considering closing its subsidiary WhiteHatJr, which it acquired at a $300 million valuation more than two years ago, a person familiar with the matter said. WhiteHat Jr is one of the most high-profile acquisitions of his 17 acquisitions Byju’s has made to date. But Byju’s now feels that its coding platform has come under considerable criticism and has lost the potential it once had.

“Byju co-founder Byju Raveendran himself is no longer keen to continue operating under the brand,” said a source.

Additionally, sales conversions also dropped significantly after schools reopened post-Covid, so WhiteHat Jr’s custom acquisition costs didn’t make sense for the amount of revenue it was making.

The development comes just a few months after laying off a significant number of employees. Last year, the company announced job cuts as part of its restructuring, reportedly affecting about 10% of its workforce. The move was seen as an indication that the platform is struggling to sustain growth and faces increasing competition from other education tech startups.

“The startup almost slashed its online and print advertising spend last year to keep costs down. Even after launching, CAC’s costs were too high to sustain spending to run the company,” the sources said.

However, a Byju spokesperson denied that they were planning to close WhiteHat Jr.

“As an ongoing activity, we are actively evaluating all of our business units to ensure they are on the path to profitability. We are just optimizing for organic and efficient growth,” the spokesperson said. FE