Continuing its aggressive acquisition spree, Byju's on Thursday said it will acquire K-12 creative coding platform Tynker for an undisclosed amount, as the edtech major looks to further consolidate its presence in the US market. In July, Byju's had acquired US-based digital reading platform Epic for USD 500 million (around Rs 3,729.8 crore) and had announced an additional USD 1 billion (about Rs 7,459.7 crore) investment over the next three years in the North American market to expand its operations there.

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In a statement on Thursday, Byju's said it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Tynker. The acquisition will enable Tynker to introduce its creative coding platform to even more kids, educators, schools and coding camps globally, it added.

Tynker's creative coding platform has been used by over 60 million kids and 100,000 schools in 150 countries. Since its inception in 2013, Tynker has helped kids create over seven billion lines of code. "Tynker co-founders Krishna Vedati, Srinivas Mandyam and Kelvin Chong will remain in their roles and continue carrying out Tynker's mission of providing every child with a solid foundation in computer science, programming, and critical thinking skills," it said. Joining forces with Tynker will unlock the ability for us to bring imagination to life for hundreds of millions of students through coding, Byju's founder and CEO Byju Raveendran said.

"Our goal is to ignite a love for programming in children globally and we feel strongly that Tynker's creative coding platform and approach to making programming fun and intuitive for kids will get us there even faster," he added. The acquisition will help expand the US footprint of Byju's - which has with more than 100 million students on its platform - by providing access to Tynker's existing global user base. The partnership is also key for both brands who share the same vision to democratise access to coding for students, the statement said. Tynker's focus is on understanding what kids are passionate about whether that's building games, making animations, or modding Minecraft and then create specific experiences, apps and personalised learning paths to empower them to create with code, Tynker co-founder and CEO Krishna Vedati said.

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"We wholeheartedly believe that joining the Byju's family can help children on a global level develop the fundamental STEM skills that will serve them well as they progress in school and ultimately help prepare them for careers in both technical and non-technical fields," Vedati added. Over the last year and a half, Byju's has acquired two additional major edtech companies in the US - Osmo and Epic.

The edtech space has seen strong growth globally, including in India, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as an inflection point. Many offline classes went online to ensure continuity of education while adhering to social distancing norms. Byju's is estimated to have raised about USD 1.5 billion since April last year in multiple tranches. Byju's (Think & Learn Pvt Ltd) is backed by marquee investors, including General Atlantic, Sequoia Capital, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, Silver Lake and Tiger Global. Flush with funds, Byju's has been on an acquisition spree, buying Aakash Educational Services Ltd (AESL) for about USD 1 billion to bolster its presence in the test preparation segment in April this year. In July, it acquired Singapore-headquartered Great Learning for USD 600 million (about Rs 4,466 crore), and announced an investment of an additional USD 400 million to strengthen its position in the professional and higher education segment. Post that, it acquired Epic.

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Previously, Byju's had acquired TutorVista and Edurite (from Pearson in 2017), Osmo (2019) and coding training platform WhiteHat Jr for USD 300 million last year.