Teacher to a new age billionaire-an incredible journey of Byju Raveendran
His tryst with teaching started when he taught mathematics to friends, who were preparing for various competitive examination. He also helped students to prepare for common entrance test (CAT)
image for illustrative purpose
The journey from a teacher to one of the richest entrepreneurs of global education industry,Byju Raveendran has an incredible entrepreneurial journey so far. Byju's has become the most valued startup of India at about $22 billion valuation under Raveendran. Perhaps, Raveendran's humble middle class roots and teaching experience have given him rare insight to ride the growth wave.
Son of physics and mathematics teachers from Azhikode village in Kannur district of Kerala, Raveendran is an engineering graduate. His tryst with teaching started when he taught mathematics to friends, who were preparing for various competitive examination. He also helped students to prepare for common entrance test (CAT).Given the success of his students, he decided to take up teaching as a full-time job. During these initial years of teaching, he met his former student and wife Divya Gokulnath.
There are many anecdotes that define Raveendran's passion for teaching. He had taught a group of few friends to hundreds of students in large auditoriums, and also taken classes through satellite communication. His first step towards entrepreneurship began with setting up 'Think & Learn' in 2011, which first offered online lessons to students. This latter led to the launch of main app in 2015. Raveendran, who calls himself an accidental entrepreneur won the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Startup category) in 2018.
Over the years, Byju's has turned into a behemoth. It's a testimony of Raveendran's ability to provide effective leadership at a time edtech space is getting crowded. Currently, Byju's app has been downloaded over 100 million times, and classes are available in 1,700 cities worldwide. Apart from organic growth, Byju's has aggressively chased inorganic route to drive future growth. Recently, Byju's has announced the acquisition of Singapore's executive education firm, Northwest Executive Education for about $100 million. The decacorn (startup with a valuation of more than $10 billion) has spent more than $2 billion so far in acquisitions in segments like K-12 tutoring, upskilling, test preparations and many more relevant areas.
Among the most notable acquisitions of Byju's is the buying out of WhiteHat Jr- the company teaches coding to children- for $200 million. Under Raveendran's leadership, the company has also entered into the ever-growing JEE coaching segment.
Last year, Byju's acquired Aakash Educational Services for nearly $1 billion. Such inorganic buys indicate that the promoter has the ambition of entering into most growing segments of global education industry. People close to Raveendran say he is a people's person. He not only knows how to lead from the front, but also has the ability to keep the people together. Notably, Byju's core team is still with the company despite rapid growth of the startup over the years. As the valuation grows, the company is also diversifying into other geographies. Currently, it has presence in US, UK, Latin America, Australia, and South Asia among others.
The company has plans to go public in the near future. With valuations nearing all time high, listing can provide exits to many investors. Interestingly, Raveendran himself participated with $400 million fund infusion in the latest round of fund raising in March 2022. Raveendran's journey in creating an edtech startup is an inspiring story for many first-generation entrepreneurs. It has to be seen how he navigates the coming phase of growth of Byju's which will attract a lot of scrutiny from both investors and competitors.
