Byju’s, India’s edtech startup, agreed to acquire Aakash Educational Services, a test preparatory services provider, from Blackstone for $1bn. The consideration reportedly involves $600m in cash and the rest in stock. “As 12 months of the pandemic have shown, there’s a clear need to disrupt education by combining offline with online, which has low single-digit penetration. The future of learning is hybrid, and bringing students to a nearby offline center provides rigor, intensity and human touch,” he said via a Zoom call to announce the acquisition," Byju Raveendran, Byju's Founder and Chief Executive Officer.