Education technology startup Byju's is clearly on a roll. After becoming the fifth most-valued start-up in India, the brand is now reportedly looking to double its workforce and has said that it plans to hire about 3,500 employees this year.
While 2,000 of the 3,500 workers will be a part of Byju's sales and operations team, the rest will be taken in for content-creation, reported the Times of India. This is now being seen as one of the largest hiring processes taken up by a private internet company in the last few years, considering many brands are known to have not just reduced hiring, but have also laid off workers.
Speaking of how well Byju's has been doing and its recruitment plans, Kris Lakshmikanth, CEO of recruitment consultancy firm The Head Hunters India, told TOI that the company is likely to attract good talent. "In recent times, not many have announced doubling their workforce. Byju's, having raised good capital recently, would also attract new talent looking for opportunities," he explained.
Apart from the hirings, the company is also gearing up to set foot in the kids segment with a separate app being launched in a few months. The segment will cater to children aged between three and eight. Byju's currently focuses on the 9-17 age group, but its founder Byju Raveendran believes that the kids segment has quite a huge potential in the market.
"Over a period of time, this segment could fetch a significant part of overall sales (30-40%) for our company," Raveendran explained to the daily, adding that the additional workforce in the sales and operations team would come in handy in regard to this expansion.
Byju's is also said to be discussing a plan to step into the kindergarten segment and is reportedly in touch with creators of many cartoon characters. Raveendran also told TOI that the company is planning an investment of $50-100 million in English-speaking foreign markets such as the US and the UK.
In the last three years, the company has said that it had witnessed a growth of 100 percent and in December 2018, Byju's had secured a funding of $400 million. In July 2017, the company had raised funds from Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings Limited, which had said that it shares Byju's mission of "transforming education."
BYJU'S has emerged as the clear leader in the Indian education-tech sector. We share BYJU'S mission of transforming education by creating personalized learning experiences for students," the Tech Crunch had quoted Hongwei Chen, executive director of investment and M&A at Tencent, as saying.
Its other investors are Sequoia ($75 million), the Chan Zuckerberg initiative ($50 million), and the World Bank's IFC fund ($15 million). Apart from the fundraising spree, Byju's earlier also acquired online tutoring firm TutorVista and Edurite from global education brand Pearson Plc.
