Byju's SPAC plan📊, Purplle acquires💄, ShareChat raises🤑

Byju's gets an offer for US SPAC listing, Purplle acquires cosmetics brand, ShareChat’s parent firm raises $266 mn, Funding Deals & more.

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Dec 17, 2021

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Byju's gets an offer for US SPAC listing for a $48 billion valuation📊

Edtech major Byju's has received an offer for a SPAC listing in the United States that could value the company at $48 billion, sources told. SPAC refers to a special purpose acquisition company that raises capital from an IPO only to acquire private companies to take them public.

Byju's has received a term sheet from Churchill Capital, a SPAC set up by former Citi executive Michael Klein, sources said. Byju's will raise between $4 billion - $5 billion through the SPAC.

Key Speakers at the Credit Suisse Asian Investment Conference — Byju Raveendran, cofounder, Byju's

The company has not finalized the offer from Churchill Capital yet and is also currently in talks with two other SPAC entities for a listing in the US.

Byju's current valuation has touched $22 billion, sources said, with the company recently closing a private round of $400 million from new investors. At a $48 billion valuation, Byju's will be valued at a multiple of over 30 times on the projected FY22 revenues - the company is expecting to clock revenues of $1.5 billion in the current fiscal.

Purplle acquires cosmetics brand Faces Canada💄

Beauty and personal care e-commerce platform Purplle has acquired cosmetics and skincare brand, Faces Canada. Both the companies are backed by Sequoia Capital.

The acquisition comes after Purplle raised $60 million last month from Premji Invest, the family office of Wipro founder-chairman Azim Premji, valuing the direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand at $630 million. Weeks prior to that, the company had mopped up $75 million from Kedaara Capital.

Manish Taneja, cofounder and CEO of Purplle

Founded in 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash, Purplle’s own beauty brands include Good Vibes, NY Bae and Purplle. It has seven million monthly active users.

Purplle has a catalogue of more than 1,000 brands and 50,000 offerings across categories including makeup, skincare, haircare, personal care, fragrances, and grooming appliances.

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ShareChat’s parent firm raises $266 million at $3.7 billion valuation🤑

Mohalla Tech, the parent firm of Moj and ShareChat, said it has raised $266 million as part of its Series G round at a valuation of $3.7 billion.

With this, the company has now raised over $1.177 billion across eight fundraising rounds, including $913 million in three rounds this year. It counts Tiger Global, Snap, Twitter and Lightspeed Ventures among its investors.

Mohalla Tech said the funding will help build capabilities such as social and live commerce, grow its artificial intelligence and machine learning team, which now has over 100 people spread across the US, Europe and India.

Since January, the company has grown to over 2,000 employees and added several new features as it focuses on building its products. It is targeting $100 million in annualised creator earnings by the end of 2023.

It said the average user spends 34 minutes a day on the app, which clocks more than 4.5 billion views daily.

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