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Imagine you are sitting in a packed class, and the teacher is explaining an important concept. It appears that everyone else is understanding the teacher's words and nodding their head in unison, you are feeling a bit off beat as the explanation is simply going over your head. Does this scenario resonate with you? Whether you accept it or not, such situations have happened at least once in a student's life. Every person has his or her pace of learning, and it is not possible for the teacher to take care of each one in the class.
Thankfully, the Edtech sector is growing fast enough to fill this gap. And talking about Edtech in India, one name that can't be missed is BYJU’s. Read on to find out how an engineer's passion for teaching led him to start the world’s most valued ed-tech company.
BYJU's was founded in the year 2011 by Byju Raveendran. He is India's youngest billionaire with a net worth of $3.05 billion as per Forbes list of India's 100 Richest People (2020). BYJU's The Learning App was launched in 2015
Lets go through the Exciting Journey of BYJU's and also discover more about BYJU's Success Story, Latest News, History, Founders, Funding, Revenue, Competitors, Acquisitions and more.
BYJU's - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | BYJU'S |
|---|---|
| Headquarter | Bangalore |
| Founder | Byju Raveendran |
| Sector | Edtech |
| Founded | 2011 |
| Valuation | $16.5 Billion (April 2021) |
| Total Funding | $2.7 Billion(July 2021) |
| Revenue | Rs 2,800 Cr revenue (FY20) |
| Parent Organization | Think and Learn Private Ltd |
| Website | byjus.com |
BYJU's - Latest News
About BYJU's and How BYJU's Works
BYJU's Founder
How was BYJU's Started
BYJU's - Name, Logo, and Tagline
BYJU's - Business Model and Revenue Model
BYJU's - Funding and Investors
Challenges faced by BYJU's
BYJU's - Competitors/Alternatives
BYJU's - Revenue and Valuation
BYJU's - Acquisitions
BYJU's - Growth
BYJU's - FAQs
BYJU's - Latest News
June 21, 2021 - BYJU's raises another $50 million from India Infoline Finance Limited (IIFL) and Maitri Edtech.
June, 2021 - BYJU'S turns the most valued startup of India, surpassing Paytm. The Bangalore-based startup raises $350 million in the recent round of funding led by the UBS Group and Zoom founder, Eric Yuan, Blackstone, and other companies that valued the company at $16.5 billion.
April 8, 2021 - BYJU’S launches global one-on-one learning platform ‘BYJU’S Future School’. The new platform will be available in 6 countries - USA, UK, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico.
April 7, 2021 - BYJU’s is all set to go public before April 2023
January 13, 2021 - BYJU’s signed a deal to acquire brick & mortar test prep leader Aakash Educational Services Ltd. for $1 billion. Aakash Institute has 200+ brick and mortar centers and tutors students to get admission to engineering and medical schools.
November 2020 - BYJU's hit $12 Billion valuation in its recent round of funding of $200 million led by BlackRock and T Rowe Price
September 2020 - BYJU's acquired LabInApp, a startup that offers lab-like simulations for science students on a mobile app, for an undisclosed value. Also BYJU's raised $500 Million as a fresh funding round from Silver Lake.
August 2020 - BYJU’s acquired Edtech startup WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million for an all-cash deal. This makes the 18-month-old Mumbai-headquartered WhiteHat Jr. that offers online coding classes to school-going students in India and the U.S. the fastest exit story at this size in the Indian startup ecosystem. WhiteHat Jr. will continue to operate as a separate entity for now.
June 2020 - BYJU's raised money from the first-ever female-founded VC firm ‘BOND’. The funding amount was not disclosed. The $1.25Bn VC fund was co-founded by Mary Meeker, writer of the influential ‘Internet Trends’ report and former Kleiner Perkins member. With this fundraise, BYJU’s has now become the second most valued startup from India, edging ahead of Oyo Rooms, the now troubled budget hotel chain. At present, digital payments giant Paytm is leading the way with a $16 billion market valuation.
About BYJU's and How BYJU's Works
The Bangalore-based educational technology platform BYJU’s is an online tutoring and coaching firm that was started in the year 2011 and runs on a freemium model. BYJU’s parent company is ‘Think and Learn Pvt Ltd’. The main aim of BYJU's is to provide coaching through online video lectures for students of class 1 to class 12 and also for people who prepare for competitive exams like IIT – JEE, NEET, CAT, GRE, and GMAT.
BYJU's - the Learning app was launched in the year 2015 and has been a huge success. It is used by more than 15 million students all over the world and has 9,00,000 paid subscribers. The app helps the students to learn on their own rather than rely on spoon-feeding. Its approach combines the re-invention of learning, world-class teachers, proven pedagogical methods, and personalized learning.
Parnas Ghosh
BYJU's Founder
Byju Raveendran is the founder of BYJU's Classes, the education Technology firm whose tagline/slogan is “Fall in love with learning”.
Byju Raveendran, BYJU's founder and CEO, was born in 1980 in Azhikode, Kerela. He has a B.Tech (mechanical engineering) from Government Engineering College in Kannur, Kerela. Before starting BYJU's , Byju Raveendran was working in a multinational shipping firm as a service engineer. However, teaching was his passion and inspired him to start BYJU's.
Besides being an entrepreneur and teacher, Byju Raveendran is also an expert sports person active in six different sports. He played football, cricket, table tennis, and badminton at the university level. Popularly known as Byju sir among his students, Byju cleared CAT twice with 100 percentile. He never joined any IIM, though.
How was BYJU's Started?
Coming from Azhikode, a small village in Kerala, Byju Raveendran was an engineer with a shipping company based in the UK. While he was working, he started to help his friends prepare for the CAT exam, an entrance exam for getting into the best business schools of India. To test himself, Byju also gave the exam and secured 100 percentile! He did not join any of the IIMs but started teaching students for their mathematics exams.
Initially, he took mathematics workshops for free and then started charging a fee when he was confident about his prowess. At one point his workshops were so popular that more than 20000 students participated in one such workshop. In the year 2009, he started to record videos of the workshops he organized.
His former students who graduated from the IIMs encouraged him to start BYJU’s classes. ‘Think and Learn Pvt Ltd’ was then formed to create content for school students. He launched Byju’s – The Learning App in 2015, and the app was downloaded by more than 5.5 million people in the first year itself.
BYJU's - Name, Logo, and Tagline
BYJU's tagline is "Fall in love with learning". Byju’s got its name from its founder's first name.
BYJU's - Business Model and Revenue Model
Byju’s works on a freemium business model wherein it offers customers both complementary and paid (premium) services. The company asks the students to submit their details on its application or website and offers them a free 15 days trial. Once the free trial is exhausted, the student has to buy the courses from BYJU’s to access the complete content. The company provides one-to-one mentoring to its subscribers and also provides feedback to the child’s parents. BYJU’s also offers classroom coaching in Noida, Gurgaon, and some other areas.
BYJU’s generates revenue in three ways:
- The first one is through the app. After the free trial of 15 days, students have to purchase the courses to continue their educational journey on BYJU’s. The app offers a variety of test series, courses, etc. which actually compels people to make the purchase.
- BYJU’s offers electronic tablets that customers need to procure when they buy the course of their choice. This tablet has the videos, tests, practice questions, quizzes, etc. pertaining to that course.
- The third revenue generation mechanism is through classroom teaching. These classes are restricted to only a few cities.
Parnas Ghosh
BYJU's - Funding and Investors
BYJU's Total Funding till date is around $2.7 Billion with the addition of the latest funding coming from IIFL and Maitri Edtech, as per reports on June 21, 2021. BYJU's hit $16.55 Billion valuation in its recent round of funding. The Edtech giant seems to be on a fundraising spree as it has already raised around $1.5 billion in 2021 alone. It has previously mopped up $350 million led by UBS Group, Zoom founder, Blackstone, and others.
In the year 2016, BYJU's became the first company in Asia to receive funding from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, an initiative by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan.
The table below covers BYJU's funding details.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Lead Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 21, 2021 | Series F | $50 Million | IIFL and Maitri Edtech |
| June 12, 2021 | Series F | $350 Million | UBS Group, Eric Yuan, Blackstone |
| March 29, 2021 | Series F | $460 Million | MC Global Edtech Investment Holdings |
| September 8, 2020 | Private Equity Round | $500 Million | Silver Lake |
| August 26, 2020 | Venture Round | $122 Million | DST Global |
| June 26, 2020 | Venture Round | $100 Million | Bond |
| January 9, 2020 | Private Equity Round | $200 Million | Tiger Global Management |
| July 10, 2019 | Venture Round | $150 Million | Qatar Investment Authority |
| March 22, 2019 | Private Equity Round | $31 Million | General Atlantic & Tencent Holdings |
| December 11, 2018 | Venture Round | $ 540 Million | Prosus & Naspers |
| August 2017 | Corporate Round | $40 Million | Tencent Holdings |
| March 2017 | Series F | $30 Million | Verlinvest |
| December 2016 | Series E | $15 Million | IFC Venture Capital Group & InnoVen Capital |
| September 2016 | Series D | $50 Million | Chan Zuckerberg Initiative & Sequoia Capital India |
| March 2016 | Series C | $75 Million | Sequoia Capital India & Sofina |
In March 2017, a case study on BYJU's was featured in Harvard Business School's curriculum. It is indeed one of the biggest achievements for any company from a non-monetary perspective. And that is when Byju’s started operating on a global platform.
Challenges faced by BYJU's
As said by Byju Raveendran, the founder of BYJU's, converting the students to paid subscribers after the free trial ends is a major challenge for BYJU's. The company is also working towards expanding to other English speaking countries, and finding suitable partners to assist with this expansion is the second challenge.
BYJU's - Competitors/Alternatives
People are rapidly moving towards digitization and adapting e-learning. Because of this revolution, many other companies with a model similar to BYJU’s are focusing on ed-tech. BYJU’s major competitors are Meritnation.com, Vedantu, Teachable, Khan Academy, Simplilearn, Schoolwise, and Toppr.
Vidhi Punamiya
BYJU's - Revenue and Valuation
BYJU's reported revenue was Rs 490 crore in the FY 2017-2018, and it increased to Rs 1,430 crore in the FY 2018-2019, Rs 2,800 Cr revenue (FY20).
November 2020 - BYJU's hit $12 Billion valuation in its recent round of funding of $200 million led by BlackRock and T Rowe Price.
June 2021 - BYJU's was valued at $16.5 Billion and became the most valued startup of India after the recent round of funding by UBS Group, Eric Yuan, Blackstone, and others.
BYJU's - Acquisitions
BYJU's has acquired a total number of 15 companies to date. Whodat Tech is the last company that Byju's acquired on August 4, 2021. Byju's previously acquired the e-learning app for competitive exam preparations, Toppr, and Edtech app, Great Learning on July 24, 2021.
Byju's is in final talks of acquiring the online tutoring platform, Vedantu. The Edtech giant has already displayed a vibrant year of acquisition, with 8 acquisitions so far in 2021 till now, and is likely to add more to it. According to the reports, the Byju Raveendran-led company has already offered an amount of $700-800 million for the deal, which is pending necessary regulatory approvals. Vedantu has been among the most prominent rivals of Byju's, and if the deal fleshes out, it will be the fourth major acquisition of the company so far.
Byju's acquisition of Vedantu was dismissed by the co-founder and chief executive of Vedantu, Vamsi Krishna, who said that any talks of merger or acquisition with Byju's are "100% inaccurate,” as per the reports on August 6, 2021.
Though the Edtech major has reportedly reached out to Unacademy and Vedantu and offered them around $1 billion last year, none of the deals have materialized this year. However, Byju's is now in talks to acquire Tynker, a coding platform for kids from the US. The talks are still at their initial stage, with no confirmation of the figures of the deal, as of August 17, 2021.
The Edtech giant spent an undisclosed amount in its previous acquisition of Whodat. Here are the details of all BYJU's Acquisitions:
| Date | Company | About Company | Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2017 |
Vidyartha | A customised learning guidance platform for K8-K12 students | $6.71 million |
| July 2017 | TutorVista | Online tutoring services platform | Undisclosed |
| July 2017 | Edurite | Audio-visual educational content provider | Undisclosed |
| July 2018 | Math Adventures | A platform that aids kids to learn math in a fun way | Undisclosed |
| January 2019 | Osmo | Platform offers educational courses with the use of games, videos and other materials | $120 million |
| August 2020 | WhiteHat Jr. | Offers online coding classes to school-going students in India and the US | $300 million |
| September 2020 | LabInApp | Offers lab-like simulations for science students on a mobile app. | Undisclosed |
| January 2021 | Aakash Educational Services Ltd | Helps students get admission to engineering and medical schools by providing coaching for entrance exams | $1 Billion |
| February 18, 2021 | Scholr | Mumbai-based Ai-enabled online education platform | $2.4 million |
| May 29, 2021 | HashLearn | Online coaching platform for competitive exams | Undisclosed |
| July 13, 2021 | Gradeup | India's largest online exam preparation website | Undisclosed |
| July 13, 2021 | Toppr | Online learning app offering training in JEE Main, NEET, JEE Advanced, CBSE and other school exams | Undisclosed |
| July 21, 2021 | Epic | California-based reading application that focuses on books, eBooks, learning, and educational technology | $500 million |
| July 24, 2021 | Great Learning | Edtech platform that offers career-relevant courses from world-class universities | Undisclosed |
| August 4, 2021 | Whodat Tech | A spatial mapping, computer vision and augmented reality startup based out of Bangalore | Undisclosed |
BYJU's - Growth
BYJU’s as a startup is pretty innovative and has garnered massive success in the market. It follows rigorous advertising strategies. Shahrukh Khan, one of the most prominent actors of Bollywood, is the brand ambassador of BYJU’s. The company has captured the Indian market and has established its presence in the Middle East as well. BYJU's intends to expand to the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other global markets. To expand its footprints in the USA, BYJU's acquired US-based learning platform Osmo in January 2019. The company also tied up with Disney to launch an early learning app for classes 1-3.
BYJU's was also in the news recently as it took a positive step during the coronavirus crisis. Since schools in different parts of India were shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak, BYJU's made its learning app free for the students till the end of April 2020 so that students could enjoy uninterrupted learning.
BYJU's targeted to double its revenues to $1 billion in the financial year that ended in March 2021, which it did effortlessly. Furthermore, with the start of the next financial year, money has already started pouring in for BYJU's. With the latest tranche of investment from the UBS Group, Eric Yuan, Blackstone, and others, the Bangalore-based startup has been successful in raising around $350 Million. This fresh round of investment of June 2021 that valued the Edtech giant at $16.5 Billion, geared BYJU's ahead of Paytm, which was valued at $16 Billion, to the crown position, making it the most valued startup of India.
BYJU's - FAQs
When did BYJU's Start?
BYJU's was founded in the year 2011.
What is BYJU's Tagline?
BYJU's tagline is "Fall in love with learning"
Why is BYJU's Successful?
BYJU's functions on a Freemium Business Model. The approach of BYJU's in providing knowledge with highly creative visual content, one-on-one learning and other facilities has led to the success of BYJU's. BYJU's has been able to rightly blend the technology and knowledge to today's generation.
Who is the Owner of BYJU's?
Byju Raveendran founded BYJU's in 2011. Think and Learn Private Ltd is the parent organisation of BYJU's
How much is BYJU's Revenue?
BYJU's reported revenue was Rs 490 crore in the FY 2017-2018, and it increased to Rs 1,430 crore in the FY 2018-2019, Rs 2,800 Cr revenue (FY20)
Who are the competitors of BYJU's?
BYJU’s major competitors are Meritnation.com, Vedantu, Teachable, Khan Academy, Simplilearn, Schoolwise, and Toppr.
Author: Rishabh Rathi
Source : https://startuptalky.com/byjus-learning-app-success-story/
Date : 2021-08-17T07:51:00.000Z