(Image source from: livemint.com)

Byju Raveendran, the founder of BYJU’S and a former classroom teacher, is India’s newest billionaire.

BYJU’S (Think and Learn Pvt Ltd) is a Bangalore-based educational technology and online tutoring firm founded in 2011. The app has grown to a valuation of almost $6 billion in about seven years.

The 37-year-old Byju Raveendran joined the rarefied club after his Think & Learn Pvt scored $150 million in funding earlier this month. That deal conferred a value of $5.7 billion on the company in which the founder owns more than 21 percent, sources said.

Growing up in a village in Kerala where his parents were school-teachers, Raveendran was always in the playground. He had a passion for cricket, football and table tennis.

Later, became a mechanical engineer and then began helping friends crack entry exams to top Indian engineering and management schools. He ultimately began teaching thousands in sports stadiums, tuning out to be a celebrity tutor who commuted between multiple cities during weekends.

He set up Think & Learn in 2011, offering online lessons before launching his main application in 2015. The business has signed up more than 35 million of whom about 2.4 million pay an annual fee of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000, helping it became profitable in the year ending March 2019. That was when Raveendran began seeking the favor of long-term investors such as pension funds and sovereign wealth funds.

                       (Image source from: Moneycontrol)

Along with his wife and brother, the Raveendran clan now holds a total stake of about 35 percent, said the people familiar.

                       (Image source from: Onmanorama - Malayala Manorama)

Captivate kids by transforming the content to fit short attention spans - is BJYU’S simple approach. Raveendran has always harbored ambitions to crack English-speaking countries and has flown in YouTube stars to feature in his videos.

BYJU’S own fortunes have climbed alongside the market. Its revenues are expected to more than double to Rs 3000 crore ($435 million) in the year ending March 2020, Raveendran said.

That pace of growth has already caught the eye of some of the industry’s biggest investors from Naspers Ventures and Tencent Holdings Ltd to Sequoia Capital and Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan.

Reportedly BYJU’S app will team up with Walt Disney Co and take its service to American shores by early 2020.

In his new app, from The Lion King’s Simba to Frozen’s Anna, the Disney characters will teach math and English to students from grades one through three. The same characters star in animated videos, stories, games, and interactive quizzes.

“Kids everywhere relate to Disneys’ Simba or Moana, who grip kids attention before we take them through the loop of learning,” said Raveendran.

                       (Image source from: The Economic Times)

India’s online learning market is expected to more than double to $5.7 billion by 2020, according to the government-backed India Brand Equity Foundation.

By Sowmya Sangam