Byju’s Valued At $4 Billion, Becomes India’s 4th Most Valuable Startup – What Is Their Secret?

Legend says that in 2007, Byju Raveendran, the founder of Byju’s Learning App ‘casually’ gave Common Admission Test (CAT) exam, and scored 100 percentile marks.

He started helping his friends to give this exam, and they all scored well.

Rest is history.

Yesterday, Byjy’s raised $400 million at a staggering valuation of $4 billion, thereby becoming India’s 4th most valuable startup after Paytm, Ola and Oyo Rooms.

What is their secret recipe? Have they cracked the code of education market in India?

Byju’s The Learning App: $4 Billion Behemoth

As per documents filed with Registrar of Companies or RoC, Byju’s The Learning App has successfully raised $400 million from Canada’s CPP Investment Board, Naspers Ventures, General Atlantic and some existing investors.

After this latest round of funding, Byju’s, which is run by Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd, has become $4 billion startup, which makes them India’s 4th most valuable startup.

Since 2008, Byju’s has raised $240 million VC capital from investors such as Tencent, Verlinvest, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Aarin Capital among others.

Their learning app was launched in 2015.

As per experts, this latest round of funding will help them to venture out into the International market, and create a solid footprint there. Initially, they are planning to expand into US, UK and Australian markets.

In July this year, Byju’s declared that they have breached Rs 100 crore monthly revenues, and have set an aim of annual revenues of Rs 1400 crore.

Byju’s The Learning App’s Secret Recipe

Byju Raveendran, founder of Byju’s used to work as an engineer with UK based shipping company Pan Ocean Shipping Ltd, and in 2007, he accidentally ventured into teaching after his friends asked him to help.

Soon, his popularity spread, and he started hiring auditoriums with a capacity of 1000+ seats to give lectures.

His initial target was students appearing for competitive exams, such as GATE, CAT, IIT-JEE and others.

But the twist came in 2015, when he launched the learning app, targeting students upto class 12th. With an average subscription fee of Rs 10,000 per year, he successfully convinced parents to spend that much, and well, it clicked.

In an interview year years back, he said, “From a classroom of 40 I thought of going 30x without ever worrying… I was sure that if I’m booking 1,200 I will fill it. Sixth or seventh week the auditorium was full. Then I never looked back..”

Here are 3 major reasons for his incredible success

• Market and Timing: There are 20 million kids who are studying between Class 6 and Class 12th as of now, and they are responsible for creating a massive $2.5 billion market in education. And Byju’s was present there, at the right time to tap this market, and create a footprint.
• Brilliant Product: As per insiders, Raveendran is a passionate teacher and a workaholic. Around 500 employees at Byju’s work only on the product aspect, which allows them to experiment, and create that robust offering which genuinely helps the children and their parents. There is no alternative to the right product, and it seems that Byju’s have cracked it.
• Sales Team: As per reports, Byju’s have more than 1000 member strong sales team, which connects the dots, and helps parents to make the wise decision. Raveendran is also hailed as a brilliant marketer, and he understood that unless there is a great sales team, and awareness, there is no point in making great products.

With more than 1.5 crore paid users of this app, they are getting close to 1 million new users every month.

Now, only sky is the limit for Byju’s.