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This Edtech Unicorn Turned Profitable After Tripling Its Revenue in FY19

• Online education market is expected to grow to $1.96 billion by 2021
• 52 per cent compounded annual growth from 2016, according to a 2017 report published by Google and research firm KPMG

By: Shreya Ganguly

Increased Internet penetration and availability of smartphones has made its way into making the world smaller. Technology is also disrupting the education market where the former is leveraged to make learning more engaging and reach students at places with poor schooling infrastructure. One of the giants in this space, BYJU’s turned profitable and recorded a revenue of INR 1,341 crore for the fiscal year which ended on March 31, 2019. This is thrice the amount of INR 490 crore in FY18.

According to the edtech Unicorn, deeper penetration of its services across India and increase in numbers of paid subscribers are the primary drivers of growth.

“We have exceeded our financial goals that we set at the beginning of the year. Expanding our base across smaller towns and cities and introducing new products have been pivotal to our growth. With 60 per cent of our students based outside the metros, the aspiration and need for quality learning has never been higher,” said Mrinal Mohit, chief operating officer, BYJU’s. 

BYJU’s Growth In Numbers

According to the company, it recorded a net profit of  INR 20 crores in FY 18-19. Its gross revenues also increased to INR 1480 crores from INR 520 crores, last fiscal.  

BYJU’s claims to have over 40 million registered users and 2.8 million paid subscribers currently. According to the company, the average number of minutes a student spends on the app has increased from 64 minutes to 71 minutes per day over the last 12 months and the annual renewal rates are as high as 85%. 

“This year, we also launched our product for young learners (Grades 1-3), which completed our learning offerings from grades 1 – 12.  We are also planning to reach out to deeper parts of India by launching programs in vernacular languages. We strongly believe that we have the capability to create a global product that can revolutionize learning for students across the world,” Mohit said. 

Future Plans

The company is now aimed at doubling its revenue to INR 3,000 crore for the current financial year. Apart from this, Mohit also revealed that the company will also soon launch BYJU’s online tutoring which will further accelerate growth and profitability for the current fiscal.

Edtech Market in India

The online education market is expected to grow to $1.96 billion by 2021, a 52 per cent compounded annual growth from 2016, according to a 2017 report published by Google and research firm KPMG.

Online disruption in the education market takes the classroom directly inside the homes of the students thereby getting wider reach. Apart from this, technological development is making education a more interactive experience for children, thereby increasing their engagement rather than one-way classroom lectures. Also, online lectures allow one-on-one attention to students to help them grow at their own pace.

Currently, apart from BYJU’s notable players such as Unacademy, Toppr, Safeducate and GradeUp are looking to disrupt the edtech market.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/344017

Edtech Firm Springboard Raises $11 Mn From Reach Capital, Others To Expand Operations

• Pearson Ventures, IFC, Costanoa Ventures, Learn Capital, and Blue Fog Capital also participated in funding round
• Springboard will invest funds in expanding operations, adding more courses, hire more employees
• Springboard has also partnered with US-based tech giant Microsoft

Aman Rawat

San Francisco and Bengaluru-based online edtech startup Springboard has raised $11 Mn in a post-Series-A funding round led by Reach Capital. Venture capital companies such as Pearson Ventures, International Finance Corporation (IFC), as well as its existing investors Costanoa Ventures, Learn Capital, and Blue Fog Capital also participated in the funding round.

With the recently raised funds, Springboard will expand its operations, add more courses, and bring more talent to the company. “We will use this funding to grow our Indian presence with more courses in design and software engineering and continue our expansion into additional geographies,” said Vivek Kumar, Springboard India’s managing director.

Though the current employee strength of the company stands at 130, Springboard plans to increase the headcount to over 200 in the next few quarters.

Springboard has also partnered with US-based tech giant Microsoft to train and provide jobs to 5,000 students in the analytics profession over the next three years through its new Data Analytics Career Track platform, which is co-developed by the tech company.

Further, in this partnership, Microsoft will provide educational content and access to its tools. On the other hand, Springboard will provide mentorship, support and career services.

Founded in 2013 by Gautam Tambay and Parul Gupta, Springboard is a workforce upskilling edtech startup that offers online courses and extensive mentor-based learning for early and mid-level professionals in data science, UX design, digital marketing, and other technology areas. The company has so far raised $20 Mn in funding.

Highlighting the need for upskilling of developers which comes in every three to five years, Kumar said that the company’s industry-designed programmes, combined with in-depth, one-on-one mentorship and career guidance, enable people to achieve their full potential.

The company claims to have enrolled over 14K students for its programmes worldwide. Notably, in 2019, the company has launched three new programmes for tech learners in India. “Springboard plans to grow its Indian presence with more courses in design and software engineering,” Kumar was quoted as saying.

Kumar further claimed that for its skilling courses, the company has so far maintained a 99.9% success rate in job guarantee programmes.

According to a report by Google and KPMG, the edtech market is expected to have a significant impact on the online education sector, which has the potential to touch $1.96 Bn by 2021 from $247 Mn at present.

The Indian education market is vast, complex, and has innumerable existing gaps. So, despite the proliferation of both Indian and foreign edtech companies, there is still enough scope to leverage the upskilling game.

In India, Springboard competes with startups such as Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, and Progate which are also leveraging their online platforms in helping tech employees upskill their skills and remain relevant to the changing times.

Source: https://inc42.com/buzz/springboard-raises-11-mn-from-reach-capital-others-to-expand-operations/

Can Better Internet Connectivity in India Give Education a Push?

• Leveraging internet connectivity, edtech apps are personalising practice sessions for millions of children
• Using advanced technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, edtech apps study individual student behaviour

By: Zisshan Hayath

Let’s go back to the time when Facebook first made its entrance in India. Most people didn’t have computers at home – and they would end up travelling a few kilometres just to reach a cyber cafe and access social networks. Instant messages and emails received slower replies and even owning a mobile phone was a luxury for the youth. Cheap mobile data was unheard of.

In just a little over a decade, the scene in India is completely different. Every other person, especially in urban areas, has access to mobile phones and laptops. India has one of the cheapest mobile data plans in the world. This has revolutionised the way mobile phones are used, even perceived.

Today, mobile devices have gone beyond their primary role of interpersonal connectivity. Today, mobile devices are a mode of convenience, entertainment, consumerism and education.

Initially, the term e-learning was only used in the context of large scale MNCs helping their employees learn on the go by eliminating classrooms. In the span of a few years, of the 300 million school going students, several million have registered themselves on e-learning apps.

So how is internet connectivity helping Indian students learn better for better results?

Accessibility:

In a traditional learning setup, quality teachers, books, and infrastructure are only concentrated in metros and education hubs. With the internet becoming easily affordable, eLearning apps leverage this connectivity to ensure that every child in in the country has access to high-quality teachers. Using live classes, children can watch India’s best teachers explain complex concepts, ask questions, and get them answered in real-time.

Personalisation:

The teacher-student ratio in Indian classrooms is extremely skewed, with one teacher for about 30-35 students on average. This number gets worse in tier II and III cities. Due to this, teachers cannot give students any personal attention. They use a one-size-fits-all approach for every child, without considering their aptitude, grasping power, strengths, and weaknesses. Due to India’s vast population and weak infrastructure, it is a mammoth task to improve this.

However, this can be easily resolved using edtech. Leveraging internet connectivity, edtech apps are personalising practice sessions for millions of children. Using advanced technology like artificial intelligence and machine learning, edtech apps study individual student behaviour.

Using this data, they start every student’s practice at a level that they’re comfortable with. The difficulty of questions is then increased until the student meets their individual learning goals.

24×7 Instant Doubt Resolution:

One of the key hindrances in every student’s learning journey is doubts. In a classroom set up, students end up waiting for weeks, if not months until the teacher completes the syllabus and then organises doubt-solving sessions. The end result is that the student’s learning journey is affected and so is their understanding of not just the topic in question, but other topics as well. They end up rote learning these topics, but this does not help when they appear for national level board or competitive exams.

Using internet connectivity, learning apps have created a chat platform where students can ask their questions. They are instantly connected to an expert who resolves their doubt for them in under a minute.

In fact, this platform, often called Live Doubts or Doubts on Chat has become so popular, that edtech apps are using natural language processing to create a bot that can answer student doubts instantly, based on the millions of questions asked earlier. If the bot cannot find an answer, or if the student has any further questions, the student can choose to chat with a live expert. As of now, over 25 percent of all doubts are solved using this bot.

Internet is bringing a revolution in every industry across India. From booking a cab to movie tickets, groceries, and games – every industry has undergone a major shift for the better. It’s now time for parents to embrace edtech and help their children learn better.

(Zishaan Hayath is the Founder and CEO of Toppr, a learning app that provides personalised learning for students studying for boards, Olympiads, and various engineering and medical competitive exams.) Chennai: In little over 3 months since video platform Tiktok ..

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