Reluctant student-turned teacher, meet Byju Raveendran - India's newest billionaire

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India's newest billionaire is a former classroom teacher who developed an education app that's grown to a valuation of almost $US6 billion ($8.7 billion) in about seven years.

The teacher-turned-entrepreneur set up Think & Learn in 2011, offering online lessons before launching BYJU’s in 2015. The online app was launched in Bengaluru and has reportedly achieved a valuation growth of almost $6 billion in about seven years.

As per the report, Byju Raveendran holds more than 21 percent stake in the company, thus becoming one of the youngest billionaires in India.

With increased brand awareness and strong adoption among students, Byju's tripled its revenue to Rs 1,430 crore in the financial year 2018-19 and also turned profitable on a full-year basis.

However, the company declined any response on Raveendran's becoming a new billionaire, saying "Byju's does not want to comment on this".

Interesting facts about Byju Raveendran:

• Byju Raveendran grew up in a typical a village setup in Kerala. His parents were school teachers.
• As a child, Byju Raveendran is described as a reluctant person. He was often know for skipping school classes in favour of football. However, despite this, his grades were never affected. 
• After he became an engineer, he started helping friends crack entry exams to top Indian engineering and management schools. Soon the classes swelled till he finally began teaching thousands in sports stadiums and he attained the status of a celebrity tutor.
• Raveendran would help his friends solve complicated Mathematical problems using simple and practical formulas and shortcuts.
• Byju Raveendran also appeared for the CAT examination for admission to top MBA colleges in India and cracked it with 100 percentile.

Interesting facts about Byju’s Learning App:

The foundation of Byju’s Learning App started with the launch of a digital platform that offered online lessons called Think & Learn in 2015.

Since the company launched its main mobile application for online learning, over 35 million students have signed up for online classes with Byju’s of which 2.4 million pay an annual fee of Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000.

Funding in Byju's also includes the first-ever investment from Owl Ventures in an Indian startup. This is the maiden investment in an Indian startup by Owl, which invests in education technology companies globally.

In one of its biggest wins, from September onwards, Byju's will be the official sponsor of Team India replacing Chinese mobile-maker OPPO.

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