The start-up culture of India has developed in the last two decades. Previously, it was America who hyped about the start-up community while India was being orthodox. But, the time has brought before us some of the most successful start-ups rising from the Indian community. These days the young minds create the start-ups who want to bring a diverse change in our society. But, for transforming our society and eradicating all the delusional thoughts holding it back from developing education is the priority. And, speaking of education, we have already heard of Unacademy, Udemy, etc. They are trying to reach even the most rural students and enlighten them. The idea of a start-up for providing online education is truly a need especially for a developing country like India. Byju Raveendran founded Byju’s Learning App in 2011 to provide online education and online live classes. Currently, the headquarters of the company is based in Bangalore, India. With only five employees in the team, Byju serves students across the world.
About the Founder Byju Raveendran
Born in the 1980s, Byju Raveendran belonged to a small village in Kerala. Both of his parents were from teaching background but he was never pushed for excelling in his academics. His father wanted him to be more interested in sports. He completed his schooling from a local school and went to Government Engineering College in Kannur, Kerala.
Raveendran acquired his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He chose to study engineering over medical because he won’t be able to make time for playing sports as a medical student. After his graduation, he joined a company as a Service Engineer. Raveendran cleared the CAT exam with 100 percentile but declined to take admission for MBA.
This is when his entrepreneurial journey started and he co-founded Byju.
The Idea
After making it to the finest IIM of India, Raveendran still decided to not go for an MBA. This was the turning point of his career and he aced it. While his friends took admission in the top IIMs, Raveendran decided to teach the MBA aspirants. So, he started providing offline tutorials to the students. And, he used to take classes on the terrace of his friend’s house.
Origin of Byju’s Learning App
While Raveendran started taking coaching classes, he initially didn’t charge any money. But, the students were free to sign up for the paid advanced classes if they liked the preliminary ones. The number of students grew eventually. And, one fine day he found himself conducting mathematics workshop comprising of 20,000 students around major Indian cities.
From Offline to Online
Since the number of students grew exponentially, Raveendran decided to record his lectures. By 2009, he started making video lectures for students across 45 different cities. Raveendran’s tutorial videos pushed him to open a company, Think and Learn. He established it with a passion to create learning videos for school students. The idea expanded to provide competitive support as well.
The Success of Byju’s
After Raveendran founded the company in 2011, he finally launched the Byju’s app in 2015. The launch of Byju’s app was very successful witnessing more than 2 million downloads in the first three months. Next year, Byju’s app became the Best Self-Improvement app under Google Play India. In 2017, the company released two more apps, Byju’s Math App for kids and Byju’s Parent Connect App respectively. The later helped the parents to track their child’s progress. The company received its initial funding from Aarin Capital back in 2013.
By the end of 2018, the app had 15 million users and over 900,000 paid users. Byju’s also acquired a couple of companies in its journey. It acquired TutorVista in 2017 and Osmo in 2019. Within 2018, the company raised around $250 million from its global investors. Recently, it raised another round of $50 million from Mark Zuckerberg, Sequoia Capital, Sofina, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, etc. In 2018, Byju also took an entry into the unicorn club valued at $1 billion. This year, Byju’s also received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award for start-ups.
Byju’s is the only start-up in Asia that is backed by Mark Zuckerberg. By the end of 2019, the company’s total funding summed up to $971 million and its total valuation to $8 billion. The app had more than 10 million downloads by 2019.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more