In the everyday dynamic culture of business providing services at your home with a single

click of smart devices, Ed-tech offers new-age business opportunities to business leaders.
Byju’s Byju Ravindran emerged as one of such young minds, who started Byju in 2011 under
‘’Think and Learn Pvt. Ltd’’ along with Divya Gokulnath.

The startup culture of India has evolved in the last few years and Byju Ravindran became the
poster boy of this Ed-tech revolution that promised to be the future of education in our new
normal. At one point, Byju had topped the CAT entrance examination and decided to provide
CAT coaching. His dream of providing education to the mass through a global platform
became a reality when the business started to flourish.

But the growth and gigantic behemoth has come at some peace-failure of corporate
governance. Corporate governance is one of the pillars of systematic and law-driven
functioning of any business or organization. It keeps checks on management, employee, and
key stakeholder and their functioning.

Byju’s have been in the news for quite some time owing to the financial due diligence of their
auditor. The audited financial statements relating to FY21 were published after a period of
scrutiny and a long wait. The institution known for being a pioneer in the education space is
now going through a period of crisis. The founder has become the center point of discussion
yet again as he tries to appease investors.

Byju’s, possibly the largest education technology (Edtech) company in the world, at least in
terms of valuation, needs to be saved from its promoters. This is not just to keep the company
but to save the collateral damage it can cause to its stakeholders. The fallout of a large
company like Byju’s will be huge not only for the startup ecosystem but also for those
students who have paid money — their future is at stake — as well as those of trainers,
educators, and employees.
HISTORY

Byju's' app was developed by Think and Learn Pvt Ltd, established by ByjuRaveendran and
Divya Gokulnath in 2011. Raveendran, who was trained as an engineer, started coaching
students to pass mathematics exams in 2006. In 2011, he and his wife founded an educational
company with the help of his students offering online video-based learning programs for the
K-12 segment as well as competition exams. In 2012, Think and Learn entered both Deloitte
Technology Fast 50 India and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 AsiaPacific ratings and has been
present there ever since.

In August 2015, after 4 years of developments, the firm launched Byju's: The Learning
App.In 2017, Think and Learn launched Byju's Math App for kids and Byju's Parent Connect
app to help parents track their child's learning course. By 2018, it had 1.5 crore (15 million)
users and 900,000 paid users. In July 2019, Byju's won the sponsorship rights for the Indian
cricket team jersey, replacing its former sponsor Oppo. Mohanlal and Shah Rukh Khan are
the brand ambassadors for Byju's.

Byju's subsidiary WhiteHat Jr. was asked to remove their five television advertisements by
the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) due to misleading advertisements.
WhiteHat Jr. had created a fictional character named "Wolf Gupta" for its social media
advertisements, without disclaiming that he was just a character. They often claimed his age
to be between 6–14 years who got job offers worth crores in multiple posters.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Byju's is an education tutoring app that runs on a fermium model, with free access to content
limited for 15 days after registration. It was launched in August 2015, offering educational
content for students from class 4 to 12. and In 2019 Early learning program has started for
class 1 to 3. It also trains students for examinations in India such as IIT-JEE, NEET, CAT,
IAS and international examinations such as GRE and GMAT.

Academic subjects and concepts are explained with 12-20 minute digital animation videos.
Byju's reports to have 4 crore (40 million) users overall, 30 lakh (3 million) annual paid
subscribers and an annual retention rate of about 85%. In 2019, the company announced that
it would launch its app in regional Indian languages. It also planned to launch an international
version of the app for English-speaking students in other countries. Recently, Byju's launched
new programs in its Early Learn App for students of kindergarten as well. In April 2021, the
company also announced the launch of "BYJU'S Future School" to be led by WhiteHat Jr
Founder Karan Bajaj. The Future School aims to cross the bridge from passive to active
learning with an interactive learning platform blended with coding and other subjects like
Math, Science, English, Music and Fine arts through storytelling. BYJU'S will launch the
Future School in the USA, UK, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia and Mexico in May.
ACQUISITION

• In July 2017, Think and Learn acquired TutorVista (including Edurite) from Pearson.

• In January 2019, Byju's acquired a US-based Osmo, a maker of educational games for

children aged 3–8 years for $120 million.

• Byju's also acquired Indian startup WhiteHat Jr for $300 million.

• In February 2021, Byju’s acquires Mumbai-based doubt clearing platform Scholr.

• In April 2021, Byju's acquired test prep firm Aakash Educational Services Ltd. in an

estimated $950 million cash and stock deal. Aakash's founders and Blackstone

Group will receive minority stakes in Byju's as part of the deal.

BYJU’S – COMPANY’S HIGHLIGHTS

Startup Name BYJU'S

Headquarter Bangalore

Founder Byju Raveendran

Sector Edtech

Founded 2011

Valuation $12 Billion (November2020)

Total Funding $2.48Billion

Revenue Rs 2,800 Cr revenue(FY20)

Parent Organization Think and Learn Private Ltd

Website byjus.com