Byju's Acquires Osmo for $120 Million in U.S. Education Push

(Bloomberg) -- Byju’s, one of the world’s most valuable education startups, bought Osmo for $120 million as it looks to the U.S. as part of a global expansion.

Osmo, a developer of learning games, will continue as a standalone brand once the deal is completed, according to a statement Wednesday.

Founded in 2013 by two former Google engineers, Palo Alto, California-based Osmo uses augmented reality and artificial intelligence to bring physical toys into the digital world. Its backers include Accel Partners and Mattel Inc. with the startup so far attracting more than 1 million U.S. households. Bangalore-based Byju’s has more than 2 million paying subscribers.

“Osmo makes learning more effective and engaging, which is very important with younger children,” Byju Raveendran, Byju’s founder and chief executive officer, said by phone. “It takes us into a new age demographic of younger kids as well as fitting into our plans for a bold global expansion.”

Osmo CEO Pramod Sharma, who founded the startup with Jerome Scholler, will both remain with the company.

Byju’s, a brand owned by Think & Learn Pvt, was last valued at $3.6 billion and has backers including Naspers Ventures, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Sequoia Capital.

The Bangalore-based company has 30 million users from 1,700 Indian cities and said it’s on target to triple its revenue to $250 million this year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saritha Rai in Bangalore at srai33@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Robert Fenner at rfenner@bloomberg.net, Edwin Chan

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