Byju’s founder and CEO, Byju Raveendran, grew up in the coastal village of Azhikode, where he studied in a Malayalam-medium government school.
Thirty-nine-year-old teacher-turned-entrepreneur Byju Raveendran’s fabled journey starts from the small coastal village of Azhikode in Kerala. The Founder and CEO of India’s largest online learning startup BYJU'S studied in a Malayalam-medium government school in the South Indian village in Kannur district, where both his parents were teachers. He went on to study mechanical engineering in his home state of Kerala before becoming a globe-trotting engineer based in Singapore at a shipping company in 2001.
During his trips back home to India, he would help his friends from the IT industry prepare for the Common Admission Test (CAT) — the gateway to India’s best business schools. He himself took the entrance test twice to see how he does and ended up getting interview calls from the prestigious IIMs (Indian Institute of Management), having scored 100 percentile (the top one percent) on both occasions. But he didn’t want to pursue an MBA (Master of Business Administration); his passion lay in teaching.
In 2005, he quit his job and moved back to India to teach MBA aspirants. His popularity as a teacher soared, as did his student count. In 2011, he formally launched his startup Think & Learn, the parent company of Byju’s.
“I do business for fun... been very fortunate enough [sic] to have my passion intersect with the real need, and obviously, I had the guts to pursue it, and I’ll pursue it till I get it and there is nothing like (actually ever getting it). The day I think it is successful, the game is over,” Byju says during a chat with YourStory Founder and CEO Shradha Sharma.
In 2015, the Bengaluru startup launched its popular online offering, ‘The Learning App,’ and became the leader in offering personalized learning programs for students. In the financial year that ended in March 2020 (FY20), Byju’s doubled its revenue to Rs 2,800 crore. India happens to be the second-largest tech market globally after the US, and the industry here is estimated to be worth $750 million.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by BYJU's.
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 offbeat 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 their pace of learning, and the teacher can't take care of each one in the class.
Thankfully, the Edtech sector is growing fast enough to fill this gap. Read on to find out how an engineer's passion for teaching led him to start the world’s most valued ed-tech company. And talking about Edtech in India, one name that can't be missed is BYJU’s.
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
Let's go through the Exciting Journey of BYJU's and discover more about BYJU's Success Story, Latest News, History, Founders, Funding, Revenue, Competitors, Acquisitions, and more.
According to a recent report called ‘EdTech in India’ by Omidyar Network India and RedSeer Consulting, “A large untapped market, coupled with burgeoning internet reach, awareness, and the digitization of primary education, yields a promising outlook for edtech in India.”
The report estimates that by 2022, online education offerings across Classes 1 to 12 are projected to increase 6.3 times to create a $1.7 billion market, while the post-K-12 (from kindergarten to Class 12) market is set to grow 3.7 times to create a $1.8 billion market. “This is going to create a meaningful opportunity for incumbent players, as well as space for multiple new startups,” it stated.
Byju’s, which provides online learning classes for kindergarten to Class 12 students and training for entrance tests to engineering colleges, medical colleges, and civil services, finds itself at just the right place at the right time.
You must be logged in to post a comment.