Indian EdTech Billionaire’s Byju’s Becomes Decacorn After Funding Round From Mary Meeker

India’s largest edtech company, Byju’s, has achieved that much-coveted decacorn status following the latest funding round led by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Mary Meeker’s Bond Capital. The estimated $100 million investment values Bangalore-based Byju’s at $10.5 billion, making it the second most valuable startup in India, after payments firm Paytm, which is valued at $16 billion.

Founded by former math teacher Byju Raveendran, 39, Byju’s reaches 57 million students across 1,700 cities, mainly in India.  Raveendran debuted on Forbes World’s Billionaires list this year with a net worth of $1.8 billion. While Raveendran hasn’t sold any shares in this round, the new valuation boosts his net worth to $2.3 billion.

“Endorsed by millions of students, Byju’s has emerged as a clear leader in education technology,” said Meeker in a statement. “We are excited to support a visionary like Byju and his team in their quest to continue to innovate and shape the future of education.” For Meeker, who’s known for her bets on Facebook, Uber and Airbnb, Byju’s is her first investment in India.

“This partnership is a testament to the role that Byju’s is playing in helping students learn better by customizing our platform to their abilities,” Raveendran said in a statement. “It also demonstrates the rising global interest in education technology as digital learning becomes increasingly accepted and embraced.”

Even before this deal, Byju’s was one of the most-funded edtech firms in the world, having raised nearly $1.5 billion cumulatively over 15 funding rounds. It boasts a list of marquee investors, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, China’s Tencent and South African private equity giant Naspers. It had last raised $200 million in February from General Atlantic at a valuation of $7.8 billion.

Byju’s offers online learning programs for kindergarten to 12^th grade students on its app and also provides training prep for entrance tests to engineering colleges, medical colleges and the civil services. After the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, Byju’s began offering free access to its app for two months, a move that resulted in a 14 million surge in student enrollments since March.

To cope with these soaring numbers, the firm plans to hire 4,000 people over the next six months and expand its course offerings to include subjects such as history and geography in addition to its popular repertoire of math, science and English. With Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan as a brand ambassador, Byju’s offers a freemium model wherein students and parents get free 15-day access after which they can opt for the paid version.

India, with its population of 260 million school-age children, is Byju’s primary market, contributing the bulk of its 3.5 million paid subscribers. In the year ended March 2020 the ed tech firm’s annual revenue had almost doubled to Rs. 28,000 million ($371 million) from Rs. 14, 300 million ($207 million) the previous year.

The Covid-19  pandemic, according to Raveendran,  has only underscored the value of online learning. “The ‘Classrooms of Tomorrow’ will have technology at the core, empowering students to cross over from passive to active learning,” he added. “The result will be a combination of the best of both online and offline educational offerings.”

The son of teachers, Raveendran started his career as an engineer and then veered to math tutoring. In 2006, he started offering test prep classes for students writing the Common Admission Test to get into the prestigious Indian Institutes of Management. He started his edtech outfit, Think & Learn, in 2011 and launched the flagship learning app Byju’s for fourth to 12^th grade students in 2015.

In 2019, the firm forged a partnership with Disney to launch an app for students in kindergarten to the third grade. Raveendran’s wife Divya Gokulnath, who was one of his early students before joining Byju’s, now runs the company with him and has a board seat.