The future of learning is exciting ???? ?? #Byjus

With the recent round of funding where Byju's has raised $350 million, Byju's now becomes India's most valued startup at $16.5 billion.

Here is the story of an engineer turned teacher, who goes on to create the most valued Ed-tech startup in the world. 

Born in 1980, in the Azhikode village of Kannur district in Kerala. Both his parents were teachers.

He received his primary education from a local Malayalam medium school. Although his parents were teachers, they always emphasized the importance of sports and encouraged him to try out different sports. During his school and college days, he used to play football, cricket, table tennis, and badminton at the national level.

He would often skip classes and prefer to learn at home. Despite this, his grades were never affected. He would go on to win Math's Olympiad and the Science Quiz competitions.

He pursued B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering from a Government Engineering College in Kannur, Kerala. After completing his Engineering, he got a job as a service engineer in a multi-national shipping firm.

It was during 2003, while he was on vacation at his friend's place in Bangalore, his friends asked him to help them with CAT preparation. He not only helped them but “casually”, just for fun, took the exam along with them. He was amazed when he scored a 100 percentile. To ensure that it was not a fluke, he took the exam again and aced it once more.

He continued helping students’ study for the CAT exam, and two years later, based on the good response, he decided to quit his job. With the classes growing in popularity, he started conducting workshops over the weekend. When one classroom was not enough to accommodate students, he started giving classes in an auditorium.

In no time, the number of students under him increased to 20000 across the country and he would now travel to more than 9 cities within a week to deliver his teachings in stadiums. 

Aren’t you too wondering... wow! That is some success… well some stop here and consider it to be the top of the cliff… very rare, continue to look forward... he was one of them….

To handle the difficult and hectic schedule he decided to record his lectures and distribute them to places where he could not manage to reach and soon more than 25 cities had access to his classes. He kicked off revision classes that were pre-recorded and screened using WebEx (an early software that enabled screen-sharing and video conferencing for business). As demand for coaching grew and technology improved, they began to record more classes for more locations. Eventually, they switched over entirely to recorded classes, with a “mentor” present to answer doubts after the video.

In 2015 he launched an application called ‘BYJU’s- The Learning App’. Within three months of launching, the app had more than 5.5 million downloads and over 2.5 lakh paid subscribers.

His application became the go-to choice for everyone, be it a distance learner or a regular coaching student, all loved the idea of innovative learning and soon the app became a raging subject throughout the country.

From a 0.045 Mn paid user base and 125 Cr. revenue in FY 16 to a 3.5 Mn paid user base and 2800 Cr. revenue in FY 20, Byju’s sure have come a long way.

Currently, BYJU’s closest competitors include Unacademy, Vedantu, which are valued at around $2Bn, and $600 Mn respectively.

BYJU’S has been on a funding spree that helped double its valuation last year, from $6 Bn to $12 Bn in less than 12 months. This was coupled with a series of acquisitions to increase its offerings. The latest round represents a 2.7X or 175% increase in the company’s valuation from $6 Bn at the end of 2019 to around $16.5 Bn now.

His focus is on the following pillars,

a) Content - Get the best of teachers, who are good at their presentation skills 

b) Media - Created an Inhouse media team of 2000+ employees {Ref: Edutainment}

c) Technology - Use the best of available technology & constantly innovate

The company has also been relying on impactful and big acquisitions to get a deeper control of the EdTech market in India. Last August, it had acquired coding for kids startup WhiteHat Jr in August 2020 for $300 Mn. This year, the company is said to be in the advanced stages of talks to acquire Mumbai-based K12 rival Toppr and has already acquired test prep giant Aakash Educational Services, which has over 200 physical coaching centres for engineering and medical entrance test prep.

The acquisition of Aakash is the biggest acquisition in the Indian EdTech space and would help BYJU’S make a mark even on the traditional and offline education ecosystem.

Let’s take a quick look at the journey -

2007: Started Byju’s classes for CAT (test-prep)

2009: Started online video-based classes for CAT

2011: Incorporated as Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd. with a focus on the K-12 segment

2014: Launched tablets for teaching (tie-up with Samsung)

2015: Launched Byju’s The Learning App

2016: Byju’s becomes the first startup in Asia to attract investments from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s organization- The Chan- Zuckerberg initiative

2017: BYJU’s The Learning App becomes a Harvard Case Study

2018: Tie up with DISNEY to create educational content for primary school

2019: Acquires OSMO (US Based maker of educational games)

2019: Roped in Shahrukh Khan as its brand ambassador and became the official sponsor of the Indian Cricket Team’s jersey

2020: Acquires Whitehat Jr.

2021: Acquires Aakash Educational Services  

2021: Launch of Byju’s Future School (United States, UK, Brazil, Indonesia & Mexico)

2021: Becomes the highest valued EdTech startup in the world and the most valued startup of India 

The very fact that the the first 10 employees of the company are still working with him. Speaks a lot about his leadership style.

This is an appreciation post for the man who started low-key but is now the most successful entrepreneur in the country! ??

NOTE - Nobody is born a successful entrepreneur. It takes years of hard work and dedication.