Allen Profession Institute has acquired Doubtnut in a deal that values the younger edtech at $10 million, in line with an individual acquainted with the matter, a reversal of fortune for the as soon as promising edtech main app.
The 2 companies confirmed the deal on Monday, however declined to share monetary phrases of the acquisition. Seven-year-old Doubtnut, whose studying app helps college students remedy math and science issues by taking photographs of them, had raised greater than $52 million previous to the acquisition and counted Peak XV Companions and James Murdoch’s Lupa Programs amongst its backers.
Because the market turned, Doubtnut engaged with many buyers together with Prosus Ventures however no deal ever materialized over disagreements on valuation, in line with individuals acquainted with the matter. In mid-2020, Indian edtech large Byju’s additionally tried to amass Doubtnut, valuing the younger startup at as a lot as $150 million, TechCrunch reported on the time.
Doubtnut gained vital consideration in 2020 for its use of machine studying and picture recognition expertise to supply solutions in native languages to college students, demonstrating another method to serving college students in one of many largest schooling markets.
Allen — which helps put together college students seeking to crack prestigious exams similar to IIT JEE Mains & Superior, NEET-UG, KVPY and the Olympiads — runs one of many largest teaching institutes in India. The agency competes with Aakash, which Indian edtech large Byju’s acquired final yr for almost $1 billion. Indian on-line platform Unacademy, final valued at $3.4 billion, explored buying Allen earlier, in line with individuals acquainted with the matter.
Bodhi Tree, one other funding fund by Murdoch and media veteran Uday Shankar, invested $600 million in Allen final yr, valuing the schooling establishment at over $1 billion.
“Well timed and efficient decision of doubts is a core client want in schooling. Doubtnut’s platform will enable us to tremendously improve the training expertise for our college students. We’re additionally excited by the prospects of providing ALLEN’s top quality tutorial merchandise to a wider viewers,” mentioned Nitin Kukreja, CEO of Allen, in a press release.