Allen Profession Institute has acquired Doubtnut in a deal that values the fledgling edtech at $10 million, in line with an individual accustomed to the matter, a turnaround in fortunes for the once-promising main edtech app.
The 2 corporations confirmed the deal on Monday, however declined to share the monetary phrases of the acquisition. Seven-year-old Doubtnut, whose studying app helps college students resolve math and science issues by taking photos of them, had raised greater than $52 million earlier than the acquisition and counted Peak XV Companions and James Murdoch’s Lupa Methods amongst its backers.
Because the market turned, Doubtnut entered into discussions with many traders, together with Prosus Ventures, however a deal by no means materialized as a result of disagreements over valuation, in line with folks accustomed to the matter. In mid-2020, Indian edtech large Byju’s additionally tried to accumulate Doubtnut, valuing the younger startup at as a lot as $150 million, TechCrunch reported on the time.
Doubtnut obtained a whole lot of consideration in 2020 for its use of machine studying and picture recognition know-how to supply college students with solutions in native languages, demonstrating an alternate method to serving college students in one of many largest schooling markets.
Allen – which helps college students put together for prestigious exams reminiscent of IIT JEE Mains & Superior, NEET-UG, KVPY and the Olympiads – runs one of many largest teaching institutes in India. The corporate competes with Aakash, which acquired Indian edtech large Byju’s for almost $1 billion final yr. Indian on-line platform Unacademy, final valued at $3.4 billion, has beforehand investigated Allen’s acquisition, in line with folks accustomed to the matter.
Bodhi Tree, one other funding fund of Murdoch and media veteran Uday Shankar, invested $600 million in Allen final yr and valued the tutorial establishment at greater than $1 billion.
“Resolving doubts in a well timed and efficient method is a core client want in schooling. Doubtnut’s platform permits us to considerably enhance the educational expertise for our college students. We’re additionally excited concerning the prospects of bringing ALLEN’s high-quality tutorial merchandise to a broader viewers,” mentioned Nitin Kukreja, CEO of Allen, in a press release.
