Byju’s offers to buy US-listed edtech firm 2U for over $1 billion

Online-education provider Byju’s has offered to buy 2U in a cash deal that values the US-listed edtech company at over $1 billion, a person familiar with the matter said.

Byju’s made the offer of about $15 a share to 2U’s board last week, said the person, who asked not to be named as the bid isn’t yet public. The offer represents a 61 per cent premium to 2U’s closing price of $9.30 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday and gives the Lanham, Maryland-based company an enterprise value of about $2 billion.

Byju’s, one of the world’s mo­st valuable start-ups with backing from Tiger Global Management and Mark Zuck­erberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initi­ative, is accelerating its expans­ion globally through ac­q­­u­is­itions. Bloomberg repo­rted in May that Byju’s was likely to bid for either 2U or Chegg.