Byju Raveendran speaks at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore on September 26, 2022.
Byju Raveenderan—the founder of eponymous Indian edtech giant Byju’s—said he is fully committed to the company despite recently revealing mounting losses.
India’s most valuable unicorn reported a net loss of 45.6 billion rupees ($573 million) for the year ended March 2021, compared to a loss of 3.1 billion rupees the previous year. Byju’s attributed the result to operating expenses that more than doubled.
Byju’s also said its revenue in the same period slipped 3% to 24.3 billion rupees. Reports suggested that the results were delayed due to differences of opinion with its auditor. The Bangalore-based company agreed to defer the recognition of almost 40% of its revenue on the advice of its auditors.
“While the last six months have been challenging, we’ve made significant improvements,” Raveendran said at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore.
Byju’s growth has been bolstered by increasing demand for online education, particularly during the pandemic. It has also been expanding rapidly through acquisitions, snapping up 15 companies across India, Asia and the U.S. in the past six years. “The future is bright,” he added. “There’s a lot of innovation happening.”
Since 2021, the company has spent $2.6 billion on acquisitions, including a just- completed $950 million deal for Indian test-prep provider Aakash Educational Services as well as another $600 million for Singapore’s Great Learning.
“Byju’s acquisitions across segments over the last year have seen substantial growth,” the company said in a statement on September 14. “Aakash in the test-prep segment and Great Learning in the higher education segment have doubled their revenues since the acquisition.”
To support expansion plans, Byju’s raised more than $800 million in March, valuing the company at $22 billion. While Raveendran has contributed $400 million of the capital that was raised, two other investors, including Sumeru Ventures and another little-known firm, reportedly have not transferred about $250 million of their committed investments. “I’m going all in,” Raveendran said of his latest investment in the company.
Raveendran offered test-prep services before launching Think & Learn with his wife in 2011 and then rolled out his tutoring app four years later. The couple’s net worth is $3.4 billion, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires list. Byju’s has attracted marquee investors like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, China’s Tencent and U.S. private equity General Atlantic.