Why Prosus keeps backing BYJU’S Learning App despite the turmoil

Prosus leans hard into digital education with the BYJU’S Learning App, even as the Indian edtech giant wrestles with debt, governance questions and a painful restructuring. What does the flagship app still offer everyday learners behind the headlines?

Reviewed: ad hoc news Software & Services desk. Edited and checked on 2026-06-18, 05:03. Details in the imprint.

Open the BYJU’S Learning App and the first thing you feel is how aggressively it wants your attention: bright colors, fast cuts, teachers scribbling on virtual whiteboards, everything tuned to make math and science feel less like homework and more like a high-energy show.

What the app promises

BYJU’S Learning App targets school-age learners in India and abroad with syllabus-aligned video lessons, quizzes and test prep, primarily for math and science from grade 4 upward. The company sells it as a way to replace dry rote learning with slick, story-driven explanations.

The core experience mixes animated concept videos, on-screen teachers and interactive questions that unlock as you move through a chapter. In practice that means a child spends as much time watching highly produced clips as they do solving problems, which some parents love and others quietly worry about.

How Prosus is tied in

Prosus became one of BYJU’S biggest external backers over the past decade, investing more than 500 million US dollars and holding roughly a 9 percent stake before recent dilutions. In 2023 it wrote down the fair value of that stake to zero, calling the investment impaired.

Despite that accounting hit, Prosus has emphasized that education technology remains a strategic vertical, even as it sued BYJU’S in 2023 over governance concerns and board access. For retail investors, that tension - strategic logic versus messy execution - is exactly what makes the BYJU’S Learning App so interesting.

Inside a typical lesson

Open a physics module and the app may start with a short animated story - a cricket ball, a six, a soaring trajectory - before cutting to a teacher breaking down projectile motion. The transitions are quick, the examples tuned to Indian daily life more than abstract textbook diagrams.

Each lesson ends with multiple-choice questions, step-by-step solutions and sometimes a summary card a student can flip through on the bus. There is often a subtle push to book a human tutor session or upgrade to a more expensive package, which can feel intrusive in an otherwise polished flow.

Pricing and availability

The BYJU’S Learning App is free to download on Android and iOS, with a limited set of demo lessons. Full access typically requires a paid course bundle, often sold through counselors who pitch multi-year packages that can run into tens of thousands of rupees for Indian families.

Internationally, BYJU’S repackages modules for English-speaking markets, but its commercial heart remains India, where it has claimed tens of millions of registered users across its learning products in past years. For German users, the app is technically accessible via app stores, yet content and pricing clearly cater to the Indian curriculum first.

Where the experience frays

The production quality of BYJU’S Learning App lessons is still impressive, even after layoffs and cost cuts, but update cycles have visibly slowed according to recent user feedback in app stores. Chapters that once received frequent tweaks and new practice sets now sit unchanged for months.

Parents also complain about aggressive sales tactics - repeated calls, upsell attempts, difficulty getting refunds - issues that have drawn regulatory scrutiny from Indian consumer authorities. For Prosus, this raises reputational questions when its own sustainability reports highlight responsible customer practices as a core value.

Financial and legal turmoil

Behind the screen, BYJU’S is going through a bruising restructuring, with media reports of delayed salaries, lender disputes and attempts to sell assets to reduce debt. Prosus publicly criticized the company’s governance in 2023, saying management regularly disregarded investor advice and best practices.

Local press also covered Prosus joining other shareholders in legal actions against BYJU’S, including efforts to oust the founding CEO from control. The legal fog makes it hard to pin down the app’s long-term funding, even if the current product still runs for existing users.

What matters for everyday users

For a student logging in today, most of this corporate drama is invisible: their physics or algebra modules either load and explain concepts clearly, or they don’t. On that narrow axis, BYJU’S Learning App still delivers a solid, visually rich learning experience for many board-exam topics.

The risk sits more in continuity and support. If servers, live doubt-solving sessions or teacher updates are scaled back to save cash, the app could slowly freeze into a static library instead of a living course, and that would undercut the premium pricing.

Prosus, portfolio logic and the stock

From Prosus’s point of view, the BYJU’S Learning App is a wounded but still symbolically important asset: it embodies the thesis that scalable software can lift education outcomes in large emerging markets, even if this particular bet has gone badly so far. The investor has shifted capital toward more disciplined, cash-generating platforms, yet keeps edtech in its slide decks as a long-term theme.

Shares of Prosus N.V. (NL0013654783) trade on Euronext Amsterdam under the ticker PRX at 37.44 euros as of 2026-06-17, 17:35 CET.

Key facts about BYJU’S Learning App

• Product: BYJU’S Learning App
• Manufacturer: Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd. (BYJU’S), strategic holding in Prosus N.V.
• Category: Software/Service/Subscription
• Launch: Initial launch mid-2010s, scaled rapidly across India after 2015
• RRP / Price: Free basic app, paid course bundles typically priced in the tens of thousands of Indian rupees per multi-year package
• Availability: Primarily India-focused, available globally via Android and iOS app stores
• Target group: School-age students preparing for board exams and competitive tests, plus parents seeking structured after-school support
• Highlight / USP: High-production-value animated lessons and syllabus-aligned content designed to make demanding STEM topics more engaging for children

This article was AI-assisted and editorially reviewed. Product information without guarantee; prices and availability may change at short notice. No investment advice, no buy or sell recommendation. Stock-market transactions involve risks up to total loss.