Edtech firm Byju’s is reportedly in advanced talks with Joffre Capital Ltd to sell Epic for about $400 million.
Byju’s acquired California-based reading platform Epic in July 2021 for $500 million in a cash-and-stock deal. It ran a digital reading platform for children aged 12 or younger.
Epic is used by 90 per cent of the elementary schools in the US, with participation from more than two million teachers and 50 million kids.
The embattled start-up has been looking since September to sell both Epic and Great Learning — a higher education and upskilling firm — to raise $1 billion to clear a $1.2 billion term loan.
A Bloomberg report on Monday said it is in advanced negotiations with Joffre Capital Ltd for the sale, with Moelis & Co managing the sale process for Epic.
A deal could be finalised as early as this month, though no final decision has been made, the report said. There is also the possibility that Byju’s could seek to keep the assets for a longer period.
Joffre Capital is a tech-focused buyout firm established by Chinese dealmakers.
Its founders include James Lu, a former executive at Chinese search engine Baidu Inc. Lu was reportedly part of the investor group that bought the gay dating app Grindr from Chinese internet company Kunlun Tech Co in 2020.
Other founders of the company are executives in technology and finance who have held senior positions at Amazon.com, Warburg Pincus and Goldman Sachs.
