Founder of BYJU is India’s Newest Billionaire

Byju Raveendran the founder of BYJU'S and a former classroom teacher who developed an education app is now India's newest billionaire.

BYJU'S (Think and Learn Pvt Ltd) is a Bangalore-basededucational technology and online tutoring firm founded in 2011. The app hasgrown to a valuation of almost $6 billion in about seven years.

The 37-year-old Byju Raveendran joined the rarefied club after his Think & Learn Pvt scored $150 million in funding earlier this month. That deal conferred a value of $5.7 billion on the company in which the founder owns more than 21 per cent, sources said.

Education technology for kindergarten through 12th grade isone of the fastest-growing segments of the country's internet market, said AnilKumar, chief executive officer of Redseer Management Consulting Pvt.

He set up Think & Learn in 2011, offering online lessonsbefore launching his main application in 2015.

Growing up in a village in Kerala where his parents wereschool-teachers, Raveendran was always in the playground. He had a passion forcricket, football and table tennis.

Later, became a mechanical engineer and then began helpingfriends crack entry exams to top Indian engineering and management schools. Heultimately began teaching thousands in sports stadiums, tuning out to be acelebrity tutor who commuted between multiple cities during weekends.

Its closing coincided with the announcement that thecompany's Byju's app- named after the founder will – will team up with WaltDisney Co and taking its service to American shores by early 2020.

In his new app, from The Lion King's Simba to Frozen's Anna,the Disney characters will teach math and English to students from grades onethrough three. The same characters star in animated videos, stories, games, andinteractive quizzes.

"Kids everywhere relate to Disneys' Simba or Moana, who gripkid's attention before we take them through the loop of learning," Raveendransaid.

Online learning is booming, perhaps nowhere more so than onByju's home turf, where internet usage is exploding because of the ubiquity ofcheap smartphones and cut-price wireless plans. India's online learning marketis expected to more than double to $5.7 billion by 2020, according to thegovernment-backed India Brand Equity Foundation.