Edtech Startup BYJU’S Says It Is Profitable On Full-Year Basis

After back-to-back massive funding rounds over the last one year, Bengaluru-based edtech unicorn BYJU’S has now announced that it has tripled its revenue to INR 1,430 Cr ($204.36 Mn) in FY18-19. This has also helped the company turn profitable on a full year basis.

Founded in 2008 by Divya Gokulnath and Byju Raveendran, BYJU’S offers a learning app, which was launched in 2015 and has 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.

BYJU’S was last valued at $ 5Bn and has raised over $819.8 Mn funding from investors such as General Atlantic, Tencent, Naspers, and Canada’s Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) among others.

In a media statement, the company said that in April 2019, BYJU’S crossed INR 200 Cr ($28.61 Mn) in monthly revenue. Going forward, it is estimating a revenue of over INR 3,000 crore ($429.3 Mn) this year.

The team believes that the growth in revenue was fuelled by deeper penetration across India and significant growth in the number of paid subscribers. Some of the key performances of BYJU’S are:

• It claims to have over 35 Mn registered users
• 2.4 Mn paid subscribers, almost 100% up against 1.26 Mn in June 2018
• On average, the overall renewal rate stood at 85%
• 60% of students are from outside the top 10 cities
• Average number of minutes a student spends on the app is 71 minutes

Byju Raveendran, founder and CEO, BYJU’S, said, “While profitability is an important milestone for us, as a company our main focus continues to be on creating engaging learning experiences that will empower students to learn better.”

In What The Financials detailing of BYJU’S, Inc42 noted that BYJU’S is expecting to incur the maximum expenses across marketing, product development and employee cost till 2022.

Going forward, with expansion to the Middle East, the US, the UK, South Africa, and other African and Commonwealth market on the cards, BYJU’S profitability matrix certainly signals the emergence of another potential decacorn from the Indian startup ecosystem.