Indians value education and are willing to invest in educating their kids.Tuition and coaching centers have mushroomed across the country. This drive to invest in education has lead unique opportunities for digital startups like Byju’s.
The online tutoring startup Byju’s expected to close an additional round of funding, valuing the company at about $3.5 billion. At this valuation, Byju’s will be ranked as India’s fourth most valuable startup (behind Paytm, ride sharing service Ola and Oyo Rooms.
Byju’s started in 2008, and since then it has raised $240 million from Tencent Holdings, Verlinvest, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venutre Partners and Aarin Capital.
The e-learning space is growing significantly in India as it has become the second largest markets after the US. According to a recent KPMG-Google report, the size of the e-learning market in India was $247 million (Rs, 1,582 crore) in 2016 and comprised of 1.6 million users. By 2021, the market size is expected to grow by eight times to $1.96 billion (Rs 12,549 crore) and the user base is expected to grow by six times to 9.6 million users.
Byju’s has also been investing in advertising and outreach. It recently launched a large advertisement campaign with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. “Byju’s associated with Khan to increase their reach in deeper parts of India and for this (app) to become mainstream”, says Divya Gokulnath, Director and Head of Branding and Communications at Byju’s.
The venture was founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran, and started as an offline tuition center in Bengaluru and launched its app in 2015 to attract a wider audience.
It currently runs two separate learning apps – one that caters to students from Classes VI to XII, and one that targets students of Classes IV and V. According to the company, “BYJU’S being the creator of India’s largest personalized K12 learning app and India’s largest educational company offers highly effective, adaptive and engaging learning programs for students from classes 4-12 grades and competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT.”