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How Ed-Tech Startup WhiteHat Jr earned a magnificent triumph and got acquired?

What is WhiteHat Jr?

The ideal educational system should focus on each child’s requirements rather than that of a group. However, due to the large population in the country, it is not possible to provide such a personalised training. Schools might struggle to take care of each child when the classrooms are filled with more than 50 students. Moreover, the curriculum gives them general education regardless of their inclinations. In such a situation, WhiteHat Jr takes a child on an exciting journey into the world of coding.

WhiteHat Jr (1) is an education technology startup that teaches coding to young children. It was established in 2018 by Karan Bajaj, who is an author and previous executive at Discovery Network. The platform instructs kids in the 6-14 age group how to code. Through the app, they lead the kids into the universe of coding. They learn about algorithms, logic, sequences and use it to make PC games, activities and applications. The startup works with a live one to one online section and a wholly approved curriculum.

The students can learn everything from information structure, application and game development to AI and space innovation. WhiteHat Jr offers online courses for various phases of learning. You can choose between the beginner, intermediate, advanced and professional levels for your kid to learn. Within one year, WhiteHatJr was able to draw in with 150,000 kids and 3000 tutors with 10,000 classes for each day. In 2020, the institute announced 400,000 students. On August 7 2020, BYJU’s acquired Whitehat Jr. for $300 million.

The mission of WhiteHat Jr

During the era of the industrial revolution, under 5 per cent of schools were teaching mathematics. This led to a lot of unemployment problems later on. Presently, not even one per cent of schools train the students to learn to code. A 2018 McKinsey report named ‘Ability move: Automation and the fate of the workforce’ presses on the need for programming skills. We can anticipate the quickest ascent in the requirement for cutting edge IT and programming aptitudes. This need can develop as much as 90% from the year 2016 to 2030. By the time it is 2025, individuals with these abilities will definitely be a minority.

Karan Bajaj, the founder of WhiteHat Jr

The founder of WhiteHat Jr, Karan Bajaj, realises that students are brimming with the potential to learn. They will be able to grasp the abilities like coding significantly more quickly than most adults. If they receive the right guidance, they can also develop their skills to become masterminds of IT. The vision of WhiteHat Jr is to empower children to become coders and app developers. In accordance with that strategy, they follow a teaching procedure based on projects. It gives more preference to the student’s innate abilities and encourages them to create games and applications from the beginning.

Building an application requires coding logic and comprehension of creating UI and back-end data structures. WhiteHat Jr makes sure that each student gets familiar with these ideas inside 40 hours of training from the platform. They will be able to develop applications, after which the company welcomes them for the Silicon Valley Challenge. They assess the student’s progress regularly to determine the grade that they belong to. Based on this evaluation, they additionally begin learning a text-based programming language. As of now, WhiteHat Jr has helped to create more than five lakh student projects.

The Silicon Valley Program

WhiteHat Jr has initiated a Silicon Valley Program, according to which selected students will receive a  priceless opportunity. The company evaluated each student’s betterment and invited them for the Silicon Valley Challenge. They have chosen 12 Indian children from age six to 16 from various parts of the country for this project. These 12 children have been selected after reviewing 7,000 or more candidates from across India. The company believes that these are outstanding children who will make some extraordinary contributions later on. Once the world is able to handle the COVID circumstances, they can visit Silicon Valley to try out their plans to a number of remarked Venture Capitals.

The central thought behind sending these children to Silicon Valley is to give them direct experience. They will have a close encounter with what is going on in the centre point of IT development. During the tour, WhiteHat Jr will make the students meet some prominent business people. They will also get familiar with some essential procedures and learn beneficial information. The children will also reap a chance to visit Googleplex and associate with their specialists. The team will also take them to visit the Waymo office to encounter driverless vehicles and converse with their production executives.

The entirety of this will assist them with widening their psyches and gathering more experience. The Silicon Valley Program will also give them the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and items to top investors (VCs). The opportunity to interact with like Nexus Venture Partners and Owl Ventures is actually what tops off the list. The champions of the Silicon Valley Program have learnt the most prominent programming languages like React Native, HTML/CSS and JavaScript. These students are also familiar with back-end ideas like Python.

The quick growth and acquisition

WhiteHat Jr was able to witness commendable growth over the last two years. The lockdown situation led to more parents searching for learning solutions online. Over the last few months, the company has seen a 100 per cent growth in subscribers. Moreover, the platform provides various packages, so it is feasible for all budgets.

The fee structure remains the same over the various stages of learning but varies based on what you get in each pack. You only need to pay 5,999 rupees for an introductory course that includes variables, functions, events, sequences, algorithms etc. For a standard module including animation, game development, advanced application structures, etc., WhiteHat Jr charges 30,000 rupees.

WhiteHat Jr
Byju Raveendran, the founder & CEO of Byju’s

White Hat got $1.3 million in seed financing from Nexus Ventures and Omidyar a year ago. The two VC firms drove a Series A funding of $10 million a month ago. Owl Ventures had also taken part in this round. All these accomplishments have earned them the attention of all giants in the Edtech world. As a result, BYJU’S learning app has acquired WhiteHat Jr for 300 million dollars. BYJU’s has also announced that they will be making a few investments in the startup. The acquisition will allow them to provide coding training to students through their platform.

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