If you are a student and willing to study online, you must have heard about Byju. Yes, it is a platform which allow student to study online from anywhere and everywhere through tutorials and live lectures. Now there are some questions in your mind, how do Byju earn?
The main revenue model is subscription model in which they sell subscription of their application to students and earn money from that.
Let’s understand what more sources are there from which they earns and what is Byju business model. For this lets understand the services they provide.
Table of Contents
- About CEO and Key Persons.
- History
- Services
- What made Byju so popular and competent with its competitor?
- How does Byju earns?
- Investment, Acquisition and Future Aim.
- Conclusion
- FAQs
About Key People
It is educational-technology (Edtech) startup which allow student to learn from the lectures and tutorials. It was founded by Byju Ravindran in 2011, headquartered at Bengaluru. Its tagline is “Fall in Love with Learning”.
The brand ambassador of the company is Shahrukh Khan and the company uses vigorous marketing strategy, thus which means, they are strongly advertising and making aware to customer about the product and service they provide.
Key people in the company: –
| CEO and Founder | Byju Ravindran |
| Director | Divya Gokulnath |
| President | Abhishek Maheshwari |
| COO | Mrinal Mohit |
| Chief Product Officer | Ranjit Radhakishnan |
| Associate VP | Siddhesh Joglekar |
| Vice President Marketing | Arun Mohan |
History
It was developed by Think and Learn Pvt Ltd. which was founded by Byju Ravindran. Before starting an edtech startup, he use to take classes for mathematics students in 2006.
Later in 2011, he founded a company Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd. which entered in Delloitte Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific ratings and ever since remained there.
In August 2015, the company launched “Byju’s- The Learning App” which was downloaded by more than 2 million students in just 3 months of its launching.
Until now, they got total funding up to $1.2 Billion and last funding was 3 months of $200 Million.
Here are the details of the investors and funding round: –
| Aug 2017 | $40 m | Tencent Holdings | |
| Dec 2018 | $540 m | General Atlantic, Naspers, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board | |
| Mar 2019 | $11.4 m | General Atlantic, Tencent Holdings | |
| Mar 2019 | $31 m | General Atlantic, Tencent Holdings | |
| Jul 2019 | $150 m | Qatar Investment Authority, Owl Ventures | |
| Jan 2020 | $200 m | Tiger Global Management |
Its total market valuation of the company is $8 Billion.
It was rated Best Self-Improvement application by Google Play. In 2017, it launched application for Parental Controlling in-app and in it’s Math App.
Byju’s business model also became a business case in Harvard Business School.
What services Byju provide?
As we know, Byju business model is to provide a learning platform which runs on freemium model, which means, one can access all contents for free for a limited period of time and after that you need to buy the subscription to enjoy all the courses offered by them.
They basically focuses on school students from 1 to 12. And also provide courses for IIT-JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS and also offers international examinations such as GRE and GMAT. They mainly focuses on mathematics and science stream where concepts are explained using 12-20 minute of digital animation video.
They has 33 million users overall and 2.2 million users are annual paid subscriber. According to the reports, the average student spends 53 minutes daily using the application which is great.
The company has launched its application in regional languages in 2019 and also provided application for international user in English Language.
What made Byju so popular and competent with its competitors?
Byju business model became so popular and also profitable as it launched it Byju’s- The Learning App. Let’s understand how.
They had focused on an untapped opportunities and worked on a specific niche in its initial years which was providing classes for only 2 subjects which are mathematics and science. Then after some time they had also introduced school studies for all subject from class 1 to 12.
While in this time, they had focused on how much time a student can study and what is best and attractive way in which they can teach. So, they started teaching with visual graphical videos and educational games. The video length generally lies between 12 to 20 minutes which don’t make student feel bored.
The most important thing is, they selected its Target Audience so well, which were generally in need of some kind of platform which will help them grow, which help them always be one step ahead of their competitors.
Here are some competitors of the company: –
They also expanded its reach to U.S.; saying that, they will provide the quality education which will build future of the student and soon captured a huge market which lead to a greater success for them.
According to the company, the company has reached at 2.4 million paid subscribers and 35 million registered users.
How does Byju earn?
Byju’s business model works on freemium business model in which user gets 15 days trial and after the trial, one has to pay for the course. Firstly, this is the main source of revenue for the company.
There are some more sources from which they earn. Let’s discuss them.
Secondly, they earns from its product which they provide while selling their courses. The product is Tablet, in which all the videos, test papers, practice questions, quizzes, test series, etc. are inbuilt. The customer gets Tables with their course.
And lastly, it earns from the classroom teachings which are restricted to only a few cities which are Gurgaon, Noida and some surrounding places.
Let’s talk about the revenue of the company. The company generated revenues of about Rs. 260 crores in financial year 2016-17 and doubled its revenue in financial year 2017-18, which was Rs. 520 crores.
Furthermore, they had targeted a revenue of Rs. 1400 crores for 2019 financial year, and he had crossed that target with Rs. 50 crores excess, and generated a revenue of Rs. 1450 crores.
Byju’s investment, Acquisition and Future Aim
As per the 2018 reports, they has crossed the 15 million registered user and 9 lakh paid users
Here are some companies which are acquired by them: –
| Company Name | Year of acquisition | Services provided by them |
| vidyartha | 2017 | Provides customized learning guidance for 8th to 12 class students |
| tutorvista | 2017 | Online tutoring platform |
| Edurita | 2017 | Audio-video educational content provider |
| Math adventures | 2018 | Platform aid kids to learn math in fun way. |
| Osmo | 2019 | A US based Ed-tech company. |
It’s very innovative concept and has achieved huge success. The company has captured the Indian market very well and has made its presence in the Middle East as well.
Although they are aiming to capture markets in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and other global markets. To expand its footprints in the USA, it acquired US-based learning platform Osmo in January 2019.
In addition, the company had also tied up with Disney to launch its early learning app for classes 1-3.
They were also in news recently for all the good reasons, as it took a really positive step during the coronavirus crisis. As schools in different parts of India were shut down due to coronavirus outbreak, they made its learning app free for the students till the end of April 2020, so that students can get benefited from it and continue their leaning.
Here is a table which will help you understand more about them or Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd.: –
| Industry | Education Technology (Ed-Tech) |
| Founded in Year | 2011 |
| Founder and CEO | Byju Raveendran |
| Headquarters | Bengaluru, Karnataka, India |
| Product | BYJU’S – The Learning App |
| Net Profit/Loss (FY 2019) | 20.16 Crores |
| Funding Received | $5.4 billion |
| Market Valuation | $8 Billion |
| Number of employees | 3200 (2019) |
| Website | byjus.com |
Conclusion
Byju business model was one of the best business models which a unicorn start-up has. They are planning to expand its presence in many countries which will help it grow in many ways.
It is a revolution in Indian as well as global education technology that had completely changed the way how a student should study and learn, how parents can track, whether his/her child is studying or not.
The company growing and also advancing its technology and providing their 100% in advancement of the education system.
FAQs
Byju provide online education for classes 1 to 12 and courses like CAT, IAS, NEET, etc.
Byju Ravindran is the founder of Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd. who founded the company in 2011 in Bengaluru.
Firstly, it provides school education from class 1 to 12 and extra courses like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, etc.
Byju provide offline education too in its centers which are situated in fewer cities which are Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi.
No, Byju is not free but it offers 15 days free trial for all new users.
If this helped you learn anything, do let us know in comment section. And if you want us to write about a specific company’s business model, leave a comment below.
As Byju, BigBasket is also a leading player of online grocery provider in India. If you want to know about the business model of BigBasket and how BigBasket makes money, check out this link- https://indieseducation.com/how-does-bigbasket-speedy-earn?
