How a part-time math tutor created the world’s most valuable edtech company

Byju’s got its start in 2005 when Byju Raveendran took a break in Bengaluru from his job as a service engineer for a shipping company.

Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO of Byju’s / Photo credit: Byju’s

“Mom and dad think all I do is play video games,” says a kid who’s watching his smartphone screen, earphones plugged in. The TV ad shows a montage of kids and teens in similar situations. It turns out each of them is actually learning science or math on Byju’s, an educational app.

In fact, more than 30 million users spend an average of 64 minutes a day on Byju’s to study school subjects or prepare for exams – and that’s in India alone. Think and Learn, the company behind Byju’s, is gearing up for global expansion this year. It has its eye on English-speaking and Commonwealth countries.

Globally, the edtech market is burgeoning. KPMG and Google predict that the online education market will grow to US$1.96 billion and around 9.6 million users by 2021 – up from US$247 million and around 1.6 million users in 2016.

In India, though, no edtech company has achieved and sustained growth at a similar scale to Byju’s. This is despite its student population of 315 million, according to the latest Census. To date, the company has around 30 million registered students and 2 million annual paid subscribers, according to a report in the Economic Times.

Byju’s is the largest edtech player in the country, valued at around US$3.6 billion. Toppr, which is perhaps its closest competitor, is valued at around US$60 million.

However, Toppr only provides lessons for students in the 5th to 12th grades, while Byju’s targets kindergarten to 12th-grade students as well as older takers of major examinations, such as the Common Admission Test (CAT) for people who wish to take a Master of Business Administration course. Playablo, another gamified learning app, focuses on six- to 12-year-old students.

Growth drivers

This decision to widen its market played a major role in driving Byju’s growth. “We realized that you need to start early to make students learn and make them fall in love with learning as this is the time where we can lay the foundation for lifelong learners,” says Byju Raveendran, the company’s eponymous founder.

He also noted that the earlier students used Byju’s, the higher their potential to become a lifelong user.

According to Raveendran, students in India lack access to quality teachers. Learning is barely personalized, given typical teacher-to-student ratios of 1:35. Memory-based learning dominates the system, driven by a fear of exams.

Edtech companies fill this gap by offering engaging, interactive content and delivering them through apps, which enable students to learn and study at their own pace.

“The reason behind our growth is that we have successfully created high-quality learning modules, videos, and interactives across segments and grades by effective use of technology, that makes learning engaging, effective, and fun,” explains Raveendran.

For example, one Byju’s video explores the question, “Why doesn’t the moon fall to the earth?”. The script has the teacher pretending to jump off a cliff, land with a parachute, and throw a ball around the world.

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