BYJU’S Moves Into After School Classes For K12, Competitive Exams

Indian edtech unicorn BYJU’S, on Monday (June 29), launched a comprehensive online tutoring programme named BYJU’S Classes to offer personalised after school tuition classes.

The new programme would allow students to access scheduled online classes, doubt resolution and one-on-one guidance from dedicated mentors, who will be in touch with both parents and students on a regular basis. The mentors will also regularly access the students’ performance through home assignments and class tests to assess their performance and counsel them on their learning approach and other concerns.

Students can choose between weekday and weekend batches to attend scheduled mathematics and science classes as per their school curriculum. BYJU’S Classes are available for students from classes IV to XII as well as those preparing for competitive exams like JEE and NEET.

Divya Gokulnath, cofounder at BYJU’S, said, “We strongly believe that a personalised and tech-enabled learning offering like ‘BYJU’S Classes’ can truly stand out in an otherwise fragmented after-school tutoring market and offer students a viable solution to strengthen the ideas and concepts taught in school.”

With the Covid-19 pandemic, Indian edtech platforms have been noting an uptick as well. In March 2020, BYJU’s noted a 150% surge with 6 Mn new students, in both metro and non-metro regions, on the platform.

Overall, BYJU’S has more than 57 Mn registered users and 3.5 Mn paid subscribers from more than 1,700 rural and urban areas in India. The company claimed that users were spending 71 minutes per day on its educational app. It had also reached annual renewal rates of 85%, as per its previous statements.

The company, founded in 2008 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran, offers learning programmes for students in classes IV-XII, along with courses to help students prepare for competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, IAS, GRE and GMAT. The programmes are offered through its app, which was launched in 2015.

Just last week, BYJU’S raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Mary Meeker’s BOND Capital. Without specifying on the use of the funding, BYJU’S founder and CEO Byju Raveendran added that the partnership is a testament to the role that the company is playing in helping students learn better by customising our platform to their abilities.

The company has raised $1.4 Bn till date and is valued at $8 Bn after its last undisclosed funding round from General Atlantic in February 2020. Its investors include Tiger Global, Tencent, Naspers, Qatar Investment Authority, and Canada’s Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) among others.