Byju Raveendran: The Celebrated Indian Ed-Tech Founder Now In Crisis (Image:twitter/sagarnirmal091 )
The lauded journey of a South Indian young entrepreneur… The commented advancement from a village tutor to a Billion dollar revolutionary start-up head… The short-time success of an educational tech start-up and its charm to fascinate investors from around the world…
Byju’s – India’s largest ed-tech company, a multinational establishment is headquartered in Karnataka’s Bengaluru. For a long time, the path was serene and undisturbed with awards, accolades, and investments one after another.
But it took only a fraction of second for things to get disordered and the fame and functioning to turn upside down. Mass terminations, Income Tax raids, cases on fraudulent dealings, employees in tears, allegations of toxic work culture… And Byju”s started trembling.
The story of Mr Byju Raveendran and his multinational educational technology company – the Byju”s – is astonishing, but now in deep- deep despair!
Byju Raveendran, having a net worth of 1.9 Billion is currently the 72nd of 100 top billionaires of India. He is native of the South-Indian State of Kerala, from a family of teachers.
Mr Raveendran was born in 1980, to Shobhavanavalli, a mathematics teacher and Raveendran, a physics teacher in Azhikode in the district of Kannur. After completing B.Tech from Kannur Government College, he secured a job as a ‘service engineer’ at a multinational shipping firm.
During his vacation, Mr Raveendran attended the Common Aptitude Test (CAT) in 2003 and scored a 100 percentile. He attempted the exam once again and scored the same. There he started helping his friends in studying for competitive exams.
Two years later, Mr Raveendran gave up his job and entered full-time teaching where he earned good results. He started test preparation classes in the name ‘Byju’s classes’ in 2007. He married Divya Gokulnath in 2009 and with her co-founded the Byju’s in 2011. They launched the Byju’s application in 2015, so that the customers can learn even from their personal handheld devices.
Byju’s-The Learning App offers personalised and interactive classes and learning experience for the students enrolled in it. The availability of the application got extended to US, UK, and other English speaking countries by 2018. By 2022, it earned more than 150 million downloads.
Mr Raveendran was included in the National Startup Advisory Council as a non-official member in 2021. It was the same year, he purchased Aakash Educational Services Ltd, a test-prep provider.
The platform was a commercial breakthrough in the time of Covid-19 outbreak, where schools remained shutdown for a long time. Byjus is the first startup in Asia funded by the Chan-Zuckerberg initiative, which was founded by Mark Zuckenberg and his wife. The application revolutionised the education sector and career opportunities in India.
Byju Raveendran has won several awards as an educator, businessman, and entrepreneur. He won The Indian Express IT Award in 2017, Manorama News Newsmaker award in 2019, The Business Transformation Award in 2020, and the Forbes India Leadership Award (FILA) for the Entrepreneur for the Year in 2021. He came in Fortune Magazine”s “40 Under 40” list, a list of forty influential young leaders, in 2021.
But when the schools reopened after the Covid-19 lockdown, things started changing slowly.
The Byju’s and its founder Mr Byju Raveendran are now facing several allegations, massive layoffs and even a raid last April. Former employees started posting videos in social media, marking their toxic experiences and reasons behind terminations, and are asking for help from the government. They also blame Byju’s for committing fraud against the employees as well as the customers.
The company booked a loss of ₹4,588 crore for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, 19 times more than the preceding fiscal. In December 2022 cases were filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights( NCPR) following the complaints filed by students and parents that Byju’s lured them into loan-based agreements for the course packages they are offering.
There are allegations saying the platform refused to offer the course they promised at the time of purchase. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raided the Bengaluru office of Byju’s in April 2023 on allegations of foreign exchange violations. As part of the cost optimization programme, Byjus, according to recent reports puts on hold its campus placements.
Mr Raveendran, once known as the pioneer of ed-techs, is in crisis for several months, followed by these allegations and mass staff terminations. The future of this start-up which was once looked by many as an inspiration is now in question.
Very recently, the Mint reported that, Byju”s may layoff about 3,000-3,500 workforce in October 2023 by ending duplication in roles across the organisation and is targeting to be profitable by March 2024. The firm also missed a promised deadline in September for filing its already delayed FY22 financials amid the structural overhaul. The Business Standard a few days back reported that the founders of online higher education platform Great Learning are in early discussions to buy back the company from Byju’s. Great Learning, under the leadership of Mohan Lakhamraju, is currently known as engaging with investors to secure funding for a potential deal.
