Byju’s – The Learning App, the Indian ed-tech (education-technology) and online tutoring startup, was founded in 2011 in Banglore by Byju Raveendran. With over 10 million downloads and a revenue of Rs. 2800 crores in May 2020, Byju’s Learning App has grown to become India’s leading K-12 education app. As of September 2020, it is the world’s most valuable ed-tech company with a valuation of $11.1 Billion.
Humble Beginnings
Before starting his teacher career, Byju was working as a service engineer in UK-based shipping firm overseas. He wasn’t initially a teacher but his journey started when he came back to India on holiday and helped few friends to prepare for the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) examinations, the entrance test for admissions in the prestigious MBA institutes of India.
His teaching style and conceptual clarity was so appreciated that he began getting requests from friends of friends and their friends as well. The number of students went on to increase from 35 in one class to 1,200 in just six sessions.
With the growing popularity of the Byju’s classes, he quit his job and began teaching students in multiple cities. With the growing popularity, Byju had to shift to auditoriums and stadiums where he tutored almost 25,000 students. The name Byju’s classes was not created by him but by the students themselves in 2007.
In 2009, as the demand for his lectures kept on surmounting, he decided to make videos of his lectures and hence, was able to tutor students from 45 cities through the use of V-SAT.
Forwarding to 2011, Think and Learn, the parent company of Byju’s, was founded which was also an idea given by the students. The plan was to create video content for school students of various age groups instead of content for just exam-taking classes like CAT. In the year 2012, Think and Learn found a place in the rating Deloitte Technology Fast50 India.
The Launch of App
Byju’s – The Learning App was launched in 2015, and was able to acquire more than 2 million downloads in first three months of the launch and over 5.5 million downloads in just one year. By the year 2018, the app had got over humongous 15 million downloads and over 900,000 were paid users.
The service has witnessed an average renewal rate of 85% with some grades surpassing the 90% mark and students spending more than an hour on the app daily.
How does Byju’s Make Money?
Byju’s work on the freemium model, in which some of the basic content are available for free but for the further access of the content, paid subscription is required. Byju’s has currently more than 40 million registered users and 2.8 million paid subscribers.
In the fiscal year 2019, the company has made a revenue of Rs. 1341 crore and a profit of Rs. 20 crores which is attributed to the increase in number of paid subscribers and even deeper penetration into Indian education space.
Now since the company has turned profitable in 2019, it has aimed to double its revenue to Rs. 3000 crores by 2020. To achieve this goal, the company is in plans to introduce new products such as Byju’s Online Tutoring and introducing local and regional languages.
A Bright Spot For Investors
From Tencent, Sequoia Capital to General Atlantic, Byju’s has consistently raised millions of dollars in funding throughout its lifetime. Recently in September 2020, Silver Lake invested $5 million in the company, along with the participation from existing investors such as Tiger Global, General Atlantic and Owl Ventures.
| DATE | INVESTORS | AMOUNT | ROUND |
|---|---|---|---|
| $9m | SERIES A | ||
| $9m | SERIES A | ||
| $25m | SERIES B | ||
| $5m | DEBT | ||
| $20m | SECONDARY | ||
| $75m | SERIES C | ||
| $50m | LATE VC | ||
| $15m | SERIES E | ||
| $30m | SERIES F* | ||
| $40m | LATE VC | ||
| * | $540m | LATE VC* | |
| $11.5m | GROWTH EQUITY* | ||
| $150m | GROWTH EQUITY* | ||
| $200m | GROWTH EQUITY* | ||
| $23m | LATE VC* | ||
| $122m | SERIES F* | ||
| $500m | SERIES F* |
Byju’s Mergers & Acquisitions
Byju’s had recently acquired the Mumbai-based online coding platform, WhiteHatJr, for $300 million.
Why is Byju’s so successful?
Format of video lessons: Byju’s strategy doesn’t just include the video format but also include highly visual contextual format, with amalgamation of animation, gamification and live-action based learning that actually makes the video quite engaging.
It attracts the attention of learner and hence, they spend more time on the app. To make the user experience even better, they even constantly analyze the effectiveness of content modules for improvement
Personalized experience: The company focuses on personalizing the learning experience based on personalizing the learning content based on students’ proficiency. A learning profile is custom built for each student based on what she likest and the app memorizes the student’s learning fingerprint, enabling the app to customize and personalize the student’s learning experience.
Byju’s personalization engine mimics the actions of a personal tutor, helping in tackling students’ weaknesses and enabling the students to learn at their own pace.
Connecting parents to the child’s learning: In 2017, it even came out with BYJU’s Maths App for kids along with BYJU’s Parent Connect App through which parents could track their child’s learning course.
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Future Plans
Byju’s is on the funding spree. These funds will go towards achieving Byju’s target of expanding to international markets. Byju’s is currently present in the Middle East and is looking to enter the U.S., U.K., South Africa, and other African and Commonwealth markets.
With the acquisition of Osmo for $120 million, which is a U.S. based learning platform popular among 5-12 year old kids, Byju’s entered the U.S market and going good to tap the U.S. edtech space. They have also been working towards customizing the English accents in the app and adapting to different education systems. Byju’s has even collaborated with Disney to launch its services for kids aged between 6-8 years old with the help of Disney’s stories and characters from Frozen, Toy Story, Cars, etc.
Byju’s has been nothing but a revolution in the education industry in every aspect. It has been riding high more so in the COVID times when schools are shut and education is catered in online format, a format which has been mastered by the company for so many years. The situation will only increase the chances of more penetration in Indian education sector, attracting more students towards Byju’s and keep on winning them over and over again.