Byju's turns profitable for first time, reports total revenue of Rs 1,430 crore in FY19; gears up for US market entry

Online education start-up Byju's has reported total revenue of Rs 1,430 crore for the year ended March 2019 and claimed that the firm has turned profitable on a full-year basis, a media report said.

The ed-tech firm, according to Business Standard, said the growth in revenue was fuelled by deeper penetration across India and significant growth in the number of paid subscribers.

Byju's has tripled its total revenue to Rs 1,430 crore for the year ended March 2019, up from Rs 490 crore revenue reported in FY18, Mint said. The report, citing the firm, said it is working on creating learning programs in different regional languages to expand its reach.

Byju's has reportedly seen its paid user base grow to 2.4 million from 1.26 million in June 2018. "60 percent of our students are from outside the top 10 cities. This high adoption rate is a clear indication that online learning is fulfilling a crucial need and is here to stay,” Byju Raveendran, CEO of Byju’s, was quoted as saying by The Economic Times.

A file photo of Byju's founder Byju Raveendran. Pic courtesy: News18 Hindi

In January this year, Byju’s acquired US-based Osmo, the award-winning playful learning system for creating healthy screen time experiences for $120 million.

Byju's has been growing at 100 percent for the last three years. It has aggressive plans for international market expansion and will continue to make big investments in technology that will help to further personalise learning for students, the company management had said in January.

In December 2018, Byju's closed a $540 million (Rs 3,865 crore) in funding round led by South African media giant Naspers.

Launched in 2015, Byju’s Learning App offers personalised learning programs for school students in grades 4-12 in India. It also offers training for preparation of different entrance and competitive examinations like CAT, JEE, IAS, GRE, and GMAT.

It has 30 million students cumulatively learning from the app. The app creates personalised learning programs for individual students based on their proficiency levels and capabilities which help them learn at their own pace and style.

The online education start-up in July 2017 had raised an undisclosed amount in funding from China's Tencent Holdings. In March that year, Byjus had also raised an undisclosed amount from Belgium-based investment firm Verlinvest. Tencent has been aggressively investing in internet-driven companies across the globe.

In 2016, IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, had invested an undisclosed amount in Byju's.

With PTI inputs