Byju’s, a leading education technology company which also runs a K12 learning app, has raised $75 million in its latest round of funding from Sequoia India and Sofina.
The funding will be primarily focused on Byju’s learning app to deliver content in a new format and expand its products as well foray into newer markets. The company has already raised over $40 million from T V Mohandas Pai & Ranjan Pai of Aarin Capital and Sequoia.
According to Byju’s, the learning app has received around 2.5 million downloads and more than 120,000 paid annual subscribers.
Byju Raveendran, founder CEO of Byju’s said, “India has the largest K12 education system in the world, but we consistently rank low in all global assessments. We started Byju’s as a mission to address these learning gaps – to make learning fun and engaging by making it contextual, visual and not just theoretical.”
Byju’s Learning App makes use of original content, watch-and-learn videos, rich animations and interactive simulations that, as opposed to rote memorization, make learning contextual and visual.
G V Ravishankar, MD,Sequoia Capital India Advisors said, “At Sequoia we have always partnered with people with disruptive ideas and big vision.
What excites us about Byju is not just the market potential but also his sheer commitment and passion to democratise access to education in India in a way that’s never been done before.”
According to Bjyu’s, its learning approach combines teachers, proven pedagogical methods, data sciences and machine learning to deliver personalized instruction, feedback and assessment for each student. The company has expanded its team by more than 600 people over the last two months.
Founded by Byju Raveendran in 2011, Byju’s offers learning programmes for Class 6-12 & Test preparation for various competitive exams such as JEE, AIPMT, CAT, IAS, GRE & GMAT. The company has a 500 member R&D team which is focused on three specialised verticals: content creation team, media production house and a technology team.
Education technology companies have received increased focus from the investor community in the recent times who are interested in firms which have strong differentiation in terms of content and video formats. The other firms which are also in the space are companies such as Vedantu, Toppr, Simplilearn, Educart, iProf Learning solutions.