The Man Who Makes Learning A Joy

Starting off as a traditional brick and mortar coaching class, Byju’s is now India’s largest and best-funded digital ed-tech venture.

- Raju Bist

HAD IT not been for sports, says Byju Raveendran, he would have never succeeded in business. A keen sportsman in his school and college days, even today Raveendran turns up in his trademark black T-shirt for work as Founder & CEO of Bangalore-based ed-tech (Educational Technology) firm Byju’s. Every evening, he continues wearing it for a round of football with his colleagues. “I used to play multiple sports from a very young age. I have always believed in the adage `Games teach you teamwork’,” says Raveendran. “Sports help you in developing and honing real life skills like peer bonding, performance under pressure, controlled aggression and leadership qualities.”

The sporty entrepreneur has imbibed these abilities very well if the stupendous growth of his company is any indication. In the six years that it has been around, the business has mushroomed to employ more than 1,000 employees, many of them ex-students of Byju’s, including his wife Divya Gokulnath. There have been over seven million downloads of the Byju’s App to date. Around 330,000 paid users are using the app on an annual subscription basis. Byju’s clocked a turnover of Rs. 120 crore for the financial year ending March 2016. “We expect to grow at 2.5x for the FY ending March 2017,” reveals Raveendran.