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It takes guts to name a company on your first name and turn it into India’s first ed-tech unicorn, that’s exactly what Byju Raveendran has done.
Raveendran is the son of physics and mathematics teachers from Azhikode village in Kannur district of Kerala in India, Raveendran is a former teacher turned entrepreneur. An engineering graduate, he started teaching maths to friends (and whoever else wanted to learn) after spending a couple of years at a shipping company. He would help students prepare for entrance exams like the common entrance exam (CAT), an extremely competitive one that permits entry into the best business schools of India. In 2003, he appeared for CAT himself and scored 100%, despite not studying enough for the exam.
Raveendran went from teaching a few friends, to teaching hundreds of students in large auditoriums, and taking classes through satellite communication. He set up Think & Learn in 2011, to offer online lessons, before launching his main app in 2015. In 2018, Byju Raveendran won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Startup category).
Foundation
Byju Raveendran co-founded online Edtech company Think&Learn in 2011 with his wife Divya Gokulnath. In August 2015, after 4 years of developments, the firm launched BYJU’S The Learning App. In 2017, Think and Learn launched BYJU’S Math App for kids and BYJU’S Parent Connect app to help parents track their child’s learning course. By 2018, it had 15 million users and 9,00,000 paid users. Byju received seed funding from Aarin Capital in 2013. As of 2019, BYJU’S had secured nearly $785 million in funding from investors across the globe, including Sequoia Capital India, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), and Tencent. BYJU’S was the first company in Asia to receive an investment from Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (co-funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan).
Model
Byju’s runs on a freemium model, with free access to content for 15 days after registration. They promise to provide quality education from nursery to high school students. The classes are primarily taught in Hindi and English, however, in a recent article Byju has stated that they would also start providing content in various regional Indian languages such as Kannada and Telugu.
Post-COVID growth
With 1.5 billion students grounded almost overnight as cities in India locked down and schools closed, the growth of e-learning platforms has been one of the most prominent narratives of the pandemic. Byju’s has picked up the opportunity with vigor and has started offering free access to their content since the beginning of the lockdown in India. In April alone, the Bengaluru-based firm grossed 34 million USD in revenue. The recent buzz has been pointed towards a partnership between Byjus and Disney which will create content for the K-3 market. While it is structured as a revenue-share model with the media giant, Byju’s plans to expand into new regions such as the United States, UK, and Australia on the back of Disney’s universal appeal. Also according to the Economic Times, Byju’s, has acquired WhiteHat Jr. for a $300 million dollar all-cash offer in August of this year. WhiteHat Jr. operates in the K-12 segment, teaching students to code and helping them build commercial-ready games, animations, and apps, using the fundamentals of coding.
The acquisition will now allow Byju’s to launch coding to children, a niche, but a fast-growing segment amongst the K-12 space, in the broader EdTech sector.
Criticism and Controversies
Byjus has received an exorbitant amount of criticism so far, from shaming employees to exploiting middle-class families, they have received flak for all kinds of activities.
Criticism is not warmly welcomed in India. Be it political parties, celebrities, businesses, and society in general, we don’t want to be criticized. Startups are no exception. And a recent incident of an angel investor’s LinkedIn account getting “permanently restricted” for his views on a decacorn has raised a few eyebrows. Aniruddha Malpani, a doctor and also an angel investor, was a prolific writer on LinkedIn on a wide range of topics covering the startup ecosystem, and lately, publishing posts critical of Edtech major Byju’s work culture, business model, and user experience, among others. Early this week, LinkedIn took action against Malpani’s account for his many posts on Byju’s. “LinkedIn has received a claim that alleges you have posted defamatory content. Due to the number of postings, LinkedIn has permanently restricted your account,” mentioned an email sent to Malpani by the professional network.
Recently, a post, critical of BYJU’s by Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam, was taken down by Quora without any explanation — Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam’s answer to Why did Kanthaswamy Balasubramaniam’s post on Byjus get deleted by Quora Moderation?.
Some time back, on Reddit, an audio clip went viral, showing a Business Development (Sales) Manager abusing a fresh associate for not being able to make his sales quota. It was laden with the choicest of expletives, calling him an asshole, a faggot, and whatnot.
Keep all of this aside, Byju’s is on track to mop up about $1 billion in fresh funding this year. The capital is likely to be used by the company for acquisitions and to push its global expansion.
Perhaps the most important reason Byju’s has found success is by placing Education ahead of Technology. I hope we can all learn from this and make the right choices in terms of educating ourselves in the future.
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empowerment through data, knowledge, and expertise. Join DDI community at https://join.datadriveninvestor.com
I read and overthink. New Delhi | Melbourne
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