Indian edtech never sold education. It sold advertising, and it was very good at it. Byju’s alone burned Rs 8,029 crore on ads between FY16 and FY22, roughly 69% of its operating revenue, on the way to a $22 billion valuation. Then the funding stopped. Sector funding fell from a $4.1 billion peak in 2021 to about $568 million in 2024, and the marketing machine that was the entire growth engine seized up. When the ad money vanished, so did the ad jobs. This is what happens when your product is a commercial, not a classroom.
The new normal: edtech ad budgets after the boom
Annual advertising spend, FY24, Rs crore
Unacademy’s Rs 201.3 Cr is itself down 33% year on year. At its peak Byju’s spent in the order of thousands of crore a year, so the whole surviving field now spends a fraction of what one company once burned annually. Source: Storyboard18 (FY24 figures).
What actually collapsed in Indian edtech?
Not the teaching. The marketing.
The story everyone tells is that Indian edtech boomed during the pandemic, then died when schools reopened. That is half right. The reopening hurt. But it hides the real mechanism.
Edtech’s growth was not built on better learning outcomes. It was built on spending more on advertising than anyone else could afford. The category leader did not win because students learned more. It won because you could not turn on a television, open an app, or watch a cricket match without seeing its logo.
So when the funding dried up, the thing that collapsed was the ad budget. And the ad budget was the business.
For every 100 rupees Byju’s earned, close to 69 went straight back out on ads. The ads were not a cost of growth. For long stretches, the ads were the growth.
How much did Byju’s actually spend on marketing?
Enough to make the number look like a typo.
Between FY16 and FY22, Byju’s spent Rs 8,029 crore on advertising and promotion. That was around 69% of its operating revenue over those years, according to Inc42’s analysis of its filings. Read that again. For every 100 rupees the company earned, close to 69 went straight back out on ads.
That spending did not buy a profit. Byju’s accumulated losses of Rs 13,229 crore between FY16 and FY22, and its FY22 net loss alone soared 81% to Rs 8,245.2 crore. The ads were not a cost of growth. For long stretches, the ads were the growth.
One industry veteran put the scale plainly to Storyboard18: Byju’s one-month promotional spend was roughly equal to a rival edtech’s spend for an entire quarter. The company was not competing on product. It was competing on airtime, and it had a bigger cheque than everyone else combined. We pulled apart exactly how that machine worked in our look inside the Byju’s marketing machine.
Why did the bust hit marketing hardest?
Because marketing was not a support function here. It was the assembly line.
When your growth model is “spend more on ads than the competition,” you staff for that model. You hire armies of performance marketers, brand managers, sales callers, and agency handlers. The org chart bends around customer acquisition, because acquisition is the whole game.
So when the cash ran out, those were the roles that went first. Byju’s laid off around 2,500 people in early 2023, and its 2024 cuts of roughly 500 fell mainly on sales and marketing. Unacademy trimmed repeatedly, including another 250 roles in mid-2024. Vedantu let go of around a thousand across multiple rounds. The teams built to spend money became the teams you cut when there was no money to spend.
This is the part the “schools reopened” story misses. The layoffs were concentrated where the spending was concentrated. A business that grows on ad budgets shrinks on ad teams.
Where is the proof that the model has changed?
In the FY24 ad budgets. They are a rounding error next to the boom years.
Look at what the survivors now spend on advertising in a full year, per Storyboard18’s FY24 figures. Vedantu: Rs 23 crore. PhysicsWallah: Rs 37.3 crore. Unacademy: Rs 201.3 crore, itself down 33% from Rs 293.4 crore the year before. upGrad: Rs 340 crore.
Now hold those against Byju’s, which was spending in the order of thousands of crore a year at its peak. An entire cohort of edtech companies now spends, combined, a fraction of what one company used to burn in a single year. The faucet did not just slow. It was replaced with a much smaller one.
The strategy shifted with the money. Vedantu’s own digital marketing lead told Storyboard18 the company moved 90% of its focus to user acquisition and sales, leaving branding at just 10%. Translation: the era of buying fame is over. Now every rupee has to bring back a paying user this quarter, or it does not get spent.
THE LESSON
Marketing spend is not a moat, it is a lease. The moment you stop paying, ad-bought growth stops, and you are left with the fixed cost of the team that used to spend the money.
What does this teach every other Indian startup?
That marketing spend is not a moat. It is a lease.
A moat keeps working after you stop paying for it. A brand people love, a product people cannot switch away from, a habit that sticks: those compound. Ad-bought growth does the opposite. The moment you stop paying, it stops working, and you are left with the fixed cost of the team that used to spend the money.
Edtech is the cleanest example because the numbers are so extreme. But the pattern shows up everywhere VC money is cheap. Quick commerce, fintech, D2C: any category where “growth” is really “we outspent everyone on acquisition” is running the same risk. The same warning signs sit inside quick commerce’s unit economics, and we have watched startups confuse a raise with a strategy before, in Indian startups that mistake funding announcements for marketing. The spend feels like a strategy right up until the funding round that was supposed to refill it does not close.
The 2,150-plus edtech startups that shut between 2020 and 2024 did not all have bad products. Plenty of them had fine products and a fatal dependency: growth that only existed while the cheque cleared.
The lesson is not “spend less on marketing.” Great marketing is worth every rupee. The lesson is to know the difference between marketing that builds something you keep and marketing that rents you a number for the next board meeting. Byju’s never learned it. The Rs 8,029 crore bought attention, not a business, and when the money stopped, the attention left with it.
FAQ
How much did Byju’s spend on advertising?
Byju’s spent Rs 8,029 crore on advertising and promotion between FY16 and FY22, which was around 69% of its operating revenue over that period, according to Inc42’s analysis of its filings. In the same window it accumulated losses of Rs 13,229 crore, with an FY22 net loss of Rs 8,245.2 crore. The advertising spend, not the teaching, was the real engine of its growth.
Why did Indian edtech companies collapse?
The common explanation is that schools reopened after the pandemic. That is part of it, but the deeper reason is financial. Edtech growth was bought with heavy advertising spend, funded by venture capital. When sector funding fell from a $4.1 billion peak in 2021 to about $568 million in 2024, the ad budgets that drove growth collapsed, and the businesses built around that spend could not sustain themselves.
How much have edtech marketing budgets fallen?
Dramatically. Per Storyboard18’s FY24 data, Vedantu spent Rs 23 crore on advertising, PhysicsWallah Rs 37.3 crore, Unacademy Rs 201.3 crore (down 33% year on year), and upGrad Rs 340 crore. At its peak Byju’s was spending in the order of thousands of crore per year, so the whole surviving field now spends a small fraction of what one company once burned annually.
Did the edtech bust cause marketing layoffs?
Yes, and marketing and sales roles were hit hardest because they were the core of the growth model. Byju’s cut around 2,500 roles in early 2023 and roughly 500 more in 2024, mainly in sales and marketing. Unacademy and Vedantu ran multiple rounds of their own. When growth depends on ad spend, the teams that manage that spend are the first to go when the spend stops.
What is the lesson for other Indian startups?
Marketing spend is not a moat. Ad-bought growth stops the moment you stop paying for it, leaving only the fixed cost of the teams built to spend. The same risk exists in any category, from quick commerce to fintech to D2C, where “growth” really means outspending competitors on acquisition. The goal is marketing that builds something durable, not marketing that rents a metric for the next funding round.
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This article is independent commentary and analysis based on publicly reported figures, cited above. It is offered as fair comment in the public interest and reflects The Brand Crush’s opinion on matters of legitimate public debate. Figures are drawn from the named sources and reflect the most recent data available at the time of writing.
Sources: Byju’s ad spend, revenue share and losses: Inc42. FY24 edtech ad budgets and Vedantu’s branding-to-acquisition shift: Storyboard18. Sector funding decline (2021 peak to 2024): Inc42. Over 2,150 edtech startups shut 2020-2024: Business Standard.
