Davos 2023: 'Past one year was our best one ever,' says BYJU’s co-founder Divya Gokulnath

Even as the edtech major BYJU’S found itself spiralling from one controversy to another in the recent past, co-founder Divya Gokulnath said the past one year was its best ever in terms of revenues and product launches.

“Sometimes the way it is portrayed is not actually what it is. We had the best one year ever in terms of the number of products that we added or the services we created, also from a revenue point of view, you will see the numbers very soon,” she said in a discussion with Siddharth Zarabi, Managing Editor, Business Today Television on the sidelines of World Economic Forun (WEF) in Davos.

“if you look at the people closest to the action, which is investors and employees, you will see a very strong indicator that things are moving in the right direction because no one has really quit. From the first 300 employees, 270 people of our core are still with us. The top six founders of the (group) company are still with us and no investor has left,” she said.

Gokulnath further said the company had to optimise, not just on the people front, but on marketing and on operations and it was the most difficult thing for the founders to do.

Talking about the funding slowdown, she said entire ecosystem consisting of investors and founders has moved from a growth mindset to sustainability mindset and what investors want from start-ups today is different from what they expected earlier. The focus has moved from revenue or acquiring more users to adding more value.

“As segment leaders, we actually benefit from more careful investments (by VC investors) into companies. We have 9,000 edtech start-ups in the country, what is going to differentiate the good from the great is the kind of quality you offer and the value that you add. Investors are placing their bets more carefully and deciding to go for sustainability and profitability over growth,” she added.