SAM, NDA, Vertices, Cooley act on Byju’s acquisition of WhiteHat Jr in $300m cash deal

Byju’s, India’s largest online learning platform, has acquired Mumbai-based ed-tech startup WhiteHat Jr. in a $300 million all-cash transaction from Karan Bajaj (WhiteHat Jr. founder) and Nexus Ventures, Omidyar Network and Owl Ventures (selling investors).

Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas acted for Byju’s and WhiteHat Jr.

SAM Byju team was led by Bangalore Partners Roshan Thomas and Abhay Sharma along with Alekhya Donepudi, Ankita Misra, Someny Singhal and Priyanka Jain.

Delhi-based Partner Harsh Kumar along with Shambhawi Mishra advised Whitehat Jr and its founder. Treelife Consulting was one of the advising companies to Whitehat Jr.

VERTICES PARTNERS acted for Whitehat Jr as counsel for the vendor due diligence and certain advisory aspects arising out of the diligence exercise, represented and led by Founding Partner Archana Khosla Burman, Associate Partner Sohini Mandal and Senior Associate Hardik Thakker. Managing Partner Vinayak Burman provided strategic inputs.

Nishith Desai Associates acted as the India legal counsel to Nexus Ventures, Omidyar Network and Owl Ventures with a team comprising Rajesh Simhan, Parag Srivastava, Anusha Reddy, Shipra Padhi and Ipsita Agarwalla.

Rishab Kumar at Cooley LLP acted as international counsel to Owl Ventures.

The acquisition will now allow Byju's to launch coding to children, a niche but fast-growing segment among the K-12 space in the broader ed-tech sector, reported ET.