Jio Platforms Ltd. (JPL), an arm or Reliance Industries Ltd (Ril) who houses its telecommunications and digital enterprises, will take up the EDTech firm Indiavidual Learning Private Limited, or have caused the drawing of nearly 300 employees for the past few months, and people who are aware of the development. “Embibe will become part of Jio and will continue as an EDTECH firm. Jio is currently in the midst of a prudence exercise regarding the merger,” a senior executive said and asked not to be identified. The merger of Minds Ril, which acquired an almost 73% stake in Embibe in 2018, will completely merge the Edtech firm into JPL, a second official with direct knowledge of the development. Several queries sent to offer and shiver first elicited a reaction to per -time. Mint’s email to return the founder Aditi Avasthi jumped back. Mint also tried to issue Avasthi via calls and messages that became unanswered. “After 13 years since the founding of the Foundation and Six years of building the right basis to carry out a daring, Jio-scale vision-I proud to share that we have officially graduated,” Avasthi wrote in a public post on the professional network platform LinkedIn Saturday. “Embibe is merging with its older – India’s largest distribution platform, with a phenomenal team from Embibe moving to this next chapter.” The company, founded in 2012, by Avasthi as a K-12-focused EDTCH platform, collected Angel Investors financing, followed by investments from investors in the early stage such as Kalaari Capital and Lightbox. Later in 2018, Reliance Jio made a commitment to invest nearly $ 180 million in the Bengaluru-based AI-powered education platform, the next three years for a 72.69% stake of Embibe’s existing investors. Lightbox achieved a triple return with an internal rate of return of 35% (IRR) when Reliance Industries Ltd acquired its stake in Embibe in 2017, Mint reported in January. According to the second executive cited above, the Embibe team, which had almost 80 employees during the acquisition by Jio, grew to almost 2000 employees at its peak, to a pivot to create scalable classroom solutions. Over time, the numbers began to decline, and in the last few rounds about 300 to 350 employees were released, a third source told Mint. India’s EDTech sector has had two challenging years that are characterized by falling investor confidence as a post-pandemic demand for online learning fades, losses of aggressive growth strategies and the downfall of the operating giant. “Embibe left about 380 people between Bangalore and Ahmedabad by the end. The management of the company knew it would merge (with Jio) since last year. Not all 380 people are discharged, some people will be picked up by Jio,” the second executive said above. They also gave a proper severance payment, while the remaining was included in JPL, they added. First published: 21 Apr 2025, 06:18 pm Ist
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