Our journey with WhiteHat Jr

WhiteHatJr, a platform for live online coding classes for kids announced acquisition by BYJU’s for $300 million in cash. This represents a milestone in the Indian consumer technology landscape.

WhiteHatJr was founded by Karan Bajaj with the vision of converting kids to “creators” from “consumers” of technology. Technology has become a critical aspect of daily lives for consumers and businesses, but the formal education systems have not kept pace in equipping children with right skills for the future.

I clearly remember my first meeting with Karan, and was impressed by his creativity, passion, attention to detail and action orientation. The idea of teaching kids to code online, while obvious now, seemed “off the left field” then — there were many questions on the depth of market, how to create a platform which is not dependent on “star teachers”, keeping kids engaged for multiple sessions across months, etc. There had been some attempts in the sector previously in India and the US but none had been able to break-out.

After a couple of discussions, we agreed to partner and Nexus led the seed round in WhiteHatJr at the concept stage. The decision was based on our belief in Karan as an exceptional entrepreneur and that done right, there was an opportunity to create a large company by addressing an unmet market need. Nexus has been an early investor in many leading consumer and technology companies and the intersection of both presented a unique opportunity. It was a contrarian investment and, like several other well-known Nexus companies, was in a sector that was not considered “hot” at the time of our first investment.

The company launched in Nov 2018 and has seen a rapid scale-up. Like many start-ups, it started in a home-office and I fondly remember participating in some of the early brainstorming sessions with Karan and 5–6 member team. Over an 18 month period, the company has created a new category. While the approach seems obvious now, the journey has not been straight forward. The company took many important decisions that played a key role in its success:

• Stay focused on the core category and not get into adjacent areas (like broader K-12 education)
• Prioritize quality of execution and tech / product development over scale, which meant intense focus on product that is easy to use for kids and teachers, keeping a high bar for teacher recruitment and training
• Create “wow” for kids and parents with high quality learning outcomes
• Build a A+ team with complementary skills in pedagogy, technology, product, sales, and operations — required significant commitment of time and resources

Nexus doubled-down and co-led Series A round along with co-investors last year, after which the company launched in the US and other global markets. The company has one of the most capital efficient models in consumer technology space.

Pratik and I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Team WhiteHatJr and help them in their journey. We have learnt a lot seeing them execute from the concept stage to becoming a category creating company. It has been a privilege to partner with Karan and team, and our co-investors. We believe that there is very large platform to be built and respect Karan’s views on this partnership being the best option for WhiteHatJr going forward. Wish Karan, Byju and the team continued success in the next phase of their journey.

Anup Gupta and Pratik Poddar
Aug 6, 2020