We all know about Byju’s. The startup does not need any introduction. It is the largest edtech company in India. In the pandemic era, it has done exponential growth. In short, we can say that Byju’s is ruling the edtech sector with funding raises, big acquisitions, and a whopping market cap.
If someone asks you a question about how is the person behind Byju’s Success, you will instantly give the name of Byju Raveendran, the CEO, and co-founder of the startup. Do you know who is another co-founder and the personality equally responsible for Byju’s success? I am sure you can’t recall the name. She is discussed very little on social media and other platforms. Her name is Divya Gokulnath. She is the co-founder and director of Byju’s.
She is the wife of Raveendran. She is also a mother of a 7-year-old boy. Today, Next Big Brand wants to share the untold story of Divya to celebrate Women Week.
How Divya is Inspiring Women?
Nowadays, Nish, the 7-year-old son of Divya, is quite happy because she is giving plenty of time to him. Pandemic has limited her work engagement and most of the time she is working from home.
Before the covid pandemic, her schedule was very tight. She used to leave for the office at 8:30 AM. She has 12 hours a day work time. She revealed that the pandemic has allowed her to stay at home for this long otherwise she never stayed at the home except on maternity leave.
She calls herself a workaholic. She remains busy in team meetings, live classes, and board duties. She was the key person in handling free live classes project for students during the pandemic.
Her efforts of free live classes were well accepted by the students. Around 6+ million new users joined Byju’s platform for online free classes in March 2020. In April, this number reached 7.5 million. She is also a teacher like her husband and takes live classes on Byju’s platform. She taught Biology and Mathematics to 8 and 10th standard students.
Even if she is busy in entrepreneurship journey, Divya always makes herself free to teach for few hours.
Her valuable efforts have made life easy for her husband and CEO of Byju’s. You can’t deny her efforts behind the 70 million registered users Byju’s has. The startup also has a total of 4.5 million paid subscribers. The company raised $1 billion in equity during 2020.
She belongs to a small village Azhikode from Kerala. Divya has become one of the youngest billionaires in India. She grew up in Bengaluru where her father used to practice in Apollo Hospital. He was a well-known nephrologist in Bengaluru. Her mother worked in Doordarshan, an Indian Government Broadcasting network. Divya completed M.Tech in Biotechnology.
In 2007, she planned to give the GRE exam for studying in the USA. In this period, she came to know about Raveendran. She was looking for a GRE preparation institute. Her friend told her that there is one teacher who teaches Mathematics in a totally unique way to crack GRE. That teacher name was Byju Raveendran.
Raveendran was quite amazed by Divya’s performance and offered her to teach along with him. That is how two geniuses came together. Rest is history.
How did Divya help in Byju’s Growth?
They started Byju’s online platform in 2015. That platform has clocked a revenue of Rs 2800 crore in Fiscal Year 2020. Raveendran and his family hold a 31% share of Byju’s, as per the Tracxn report.
Byju’s recorded a profit on a full-year basis in FY19 but did not reveal the financial details. The regulatory filing showed Rs 20 crore profit and it reduced company net loss to Rs 9 crore that was Rs 37 crore in FY18.
In May 2019, the edtech firm noted it had turned profitable on a full-year basis for FY19. Though it didn’t share the financials, regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs show a net profit of ₹20 crores for FY19 on a standalone basis; it also narrowed its net loss to around ₹9 crores on a consolidated basis as against ₹37 crores in FY18. Divya takes care of content, brand marketing, and subscribers’ experience-related activities in the company.
Investors praised her working style a lot. Dev Khare, one of the investors in Byju’s said:
“Her style in simplifying concepts, be it for the educational materials that Byju’s produces or for presentations she makes, has helped the company excel.”
Byju’s was recently criticized for its sales push strategy by the experts. Talking about this issue, Divya said:
“Criticising people are very less in number but can you see how much students are taking services of Byju’s. We have around 70 million subscribers on Byju’s platform and it shows the trust level. We are least concerned by the critics statements. We take students feedback seriously.”
In some of the known acquisitions, Byju’s has acquired White Hat Jr. and offline coaching giant Aakash Institute.
Team Next Big Brand wishes more success to Divya and her edtech firm Byju’s. We hope that the company will bring positive changes to the Indian Education System.
