BYJU's CEO Byju Raveendran becomes India's Newest Billionaire - All You Need to Know

BYJU's CEO Byju Raveendran has become India’s Newest Billionaire, as per media reports. The EdTech Entrepreneur who started his career in a classroom has turned the tables around to become the newest member of India’s Billionaire club. He achieved this feat at the age of 37. His new found status as Billionaire comes in the wake of his company Think & Learn Pvt scored $150 million in funding earlier this month. After the deal, the company’s total valuation has gone upto USD 5.7 billion of which 21% is owned by the founder Byju Raveendran

So, let’s meet and find out more about Byju Raveendran, who went from an engineer to a classroom teacher to one of the most success EdTech entrepreneurs to finally India’s newest Billionaire.

Family & Academic Background

Byju Raveendran hails from Azhikode, a coastal village in Kerala along India’s southern coast. He grew up in a typical a village setup. His parents were school teachers and that is where the strong foundation of being a visionary educator started. As a child, Byju has been described by his peers as a reluctant pupil. He is often know to skip school classes in favour of football field. However, despite this his grades were never affected and he always made sure to learn things on his own at home.

Helping Friends crack MBA, Engineering Exams

Byju started his career working with a UK based company working as an engineer. His tutoring days began when he started helping his friends in preparation for engineering and MBA entrance exams to join top colleges in India. He would help his friends solve complicated Mathematical problems using simple and practical formulas and shortcuts.

100 Percentiler without IIM

Byju Raveendran also appeared for the CAT examination for admission to top MBA colleges in India and cracked it with 100 percentile. However, despite this, he choose not to join any IIM and instad started taking Mathematics tuitions. Soon, his technique caught on and became popular among other aspirants as well who approached him for tutoring. Soon, his classes started swelling from a few students to thousands, and he attained the status of a celebrity tutor.

Foundation of Think & Learn

The foundation of Byju’s Learning App started with the establishment of Think & Learn. The digital platform offered online lessons through website. In 2015, the company launched its main mobile application for online learning. Since then, the 35 million students have signed up for online classes with Byju’s of which 2.4 million pay an annual fee of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000.

Byju’s Learning Principal

Byju’s learning app works on the simple and straight forward approach. It captivates kids and captures for imagination to transform educational content to fit the short attention span of children. In its latest initiative, Byju’s has teamed up with Walt Disney Co and take its service to American shores by early 2020.