Bengaluru-based Byju’s (Think and Learn) has emerged as the most active media & telecom (TMT) company across the global merger and acquisition market in 2021, analytics firm GlobalData said on Monday. Byju’s, that plans on going public soon, has completely acquired 10 edtech companies for a combined transaction value of $2.5 billion in 2021, GlobalData said.
Byju’s major deals in 2021 include the acquisition of India-based edtech firm Aakash Educational Services for $1 billion and Great Learning for $600 billion.
Earlier on Monday, Byju’s announced that it has partnered with Qatar Investment Authority to launch a new edtech business and research and development centre in Doha.
Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate Tencent also has been featured alongside Byju’s. Tencent acquired video game developers Sumo Digital for $1.3 billion and Crytek for $355 billion.
Both these companies acquired six and four TMT companies (in deals with a disclosed value ≥S$50 million), respectively, GlobalData said in its report ‘ Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) in Tech, Media, & Telecom (TMT) 2021 Themes’.
As per the report, the total number of deals in 2021 reached 996, a whopping 44% increase from 2020. Out of these deals, gaming and edtech themes accounted for 57 and 17 deals, respectively.
“With increasing mobile penetration and prolonged lockdowns, mobile and online gaming has boomed as a pass time. The immediate effect was a spurt in mobile game sales, benefiting both game developers and gaming device makers and this has benefitted Tencent and other gaming companies. In fact, gaming was one of the top 10 primary themes driving top 100 deals in 2021 when measured by deal volume,” Snigdha Parida, Senior Analyst of Thematic Research at GlobalData said in a release.
The edtech sector is still in its infancy but expanding due to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact, Parida added. GlobalData has forecast that the global edtech revenues will reach $538.5 billion in 2030.
