From September onwards, Indian Cricket team jersey will have a new brand name on their jerseys. Chinese mobile maker- Oppo name, which currently holds the sponsorship will be replaced by India’s very own Byju’s – an educational technology firm based in Bengaluru.

According to reports the Oppo logo on the Indian jerseys will be removed after West Indies tour which commences from August 3 and ends on September 2. The Indian team will be seen sporting the Byju’s logo when they face South Africa in the mid of September.

Speaking to The Logical Indian, Byju Raveendran, Founder & CEO of Byju’s said, “As a learning company, BYJU’S has always recognised the critical role that sport plays in a child’s development. Just as cricket inspires a billion budding dreams across India, we too as a learning company hope to inspire the love of learning in every child’s heart.”

Oppo in March 2017 bought the sponsorship rights from Star India for five years, which was supposed to end in March 2022, at a huge cost of Rs 1079 crores. However, the company is reallocating sponsorship. It blamed the value at which it acquired the rights, calling it “extremely high” and “unsustainable”.

Indian national cricket board – BCCI has mentioned that the same amount of sponsorship will be paid by the Byju’s. BCCI further assured that Byju’s would not incur for the entire duration of the deal which will end on March 31, 2022.

From A Startup To Sponsoring Indian Cricket Team

When Byju’s launched its app in the google play store in 2014, no one anticipated that the company will be included in the prestigious Unicorn club in the next four years.

The brainchild of Byju Raveendran, one among a very few who cracked the Common Admission Test (CAT) with 100 % score globally and won National Math Olympiad, Byju’s is the world’s largest education company today.

In 2009, Raveendran took the very first step by starting online video coaching for CAT aspirants. By 2011, Raveendran registered his company and called it Think & Learn.

A year later, he had his first brush with the success when the company was awarded as one among the fastest-growing tech companies in India by Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India.

Raveendran hasn’t looked back since then.

In 2014, the company launched its tablet learning app for competitive exams and classes eight to 12th. In 2015, the company introduced Byju’s learning app.

The app was an instant hit among students. The company witnessed a jump of 2 million student users within the first three months.

In 2016, the company secured $50 million from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, of Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan, in it’s Series D round of investment.

Aware of the growing popularity of the learning app, the Harvard Business School did a case study on the company to understand the impact of technology on students in 2017.

In the same year, the company acquired TutorVista and Edurite from Pearson, in a bid to step its foot on foreign soil.

In 2018, the company became a unicorn with a valuation of over $1 billion.

In July 2019 the company added another feather to its cap in the ongoing Series F funding. It was valued at a whopping $5.5 billion, witnessing a 50% jump in a single round which kicked off in December last year.

The company in 2019 collaborated with Disney India to develop Early Learn app for kids aged between 6 and 8 (Classes 1 to 3).

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