Byju's acquires AR startup Whodat

Ed-tech giant Byju's has acquired augmented reality (AR) startup Whodat for an undisclosed amount. Although full terms of the deal remain unknown, the companies have confirmed that the entire Whodat team and their proprietary computer vision platform have been acquired to accelerate product development in key areas.

Whodat's AR platform facilitates immersive experiences that spontaneously spot users' environments without employing physical markers to overlay 3D content.

The said technology drives applications in mobility and robotics and thus will help in Byju's product development, impacting students' learning experiences. Post the transaction, Venture Fund Ideaspring Capital, which had pumped in $600,000 in Whodat, has exited.

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"We are incredibly excited to partner with Byju's on a mission to make students across the world fall in love with learning. Whodat has had an incredible journey so far and this will leapfrog our impact to the next level," said Sriram Ganesh, co-founder, Whodat.

Meanwhile, Anita Kishore, chief strategy officer at Byju's said that the deal will help them accelerate their product roadmap to provide immersive educational products across product lines.

Byju's is aiming at building itself into an online and digital learning powerhouse which is focused on everything from K12 to professional education, and competitive test preparation.

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Founded in 2013 by Sriram Ganesh and Kaushik Das, Whodat has built an AR platform based on computer vision which lets developers build apps that require location accuracy far beyond the capabilities of GPS alone.

The technology initially targeted augmented reality apps, but also had the potential to be used to power applications in mobility and robotics.