Byju’s woes: A timeline of the Indian edutech giant’s troubles at home and abroad

Edutech major Byju’s has been in crisis since 2022 when it released its financial statement for FY21 in September 2022 haemorrhaging the group’s image leading to raids by the Enforcement Directorate, lawsuits against lenders

The financial woes of India’s most successful edutech company Byju’s continue to worsen as it skipped payment of $40 million interest on its $ 1.2-billion loan on June 6.

Byju’s has issued a statement saying that it has elected not to make further payments on the $1.2 billion so-called term loan B (TLB), and has accused U.S-based investment management firm Redwood of ‘predatory’ tactics. The move followed TLB lenders, led by Redwood, allegedly issuing a notice seeking immediate payment of the entire loan amount. Byju’s has countered by filing a complaint in the New York Supreme Court challenging the acceleration.

This escalation is the latest in a series of crises for the company, which began in 2021.

In November 2021, the edutech major raised over $1.2 billion in a term loan B (TLB) funding round for general offshore corporate purposes, which included expanding its business in North America and funding potential inorganic growth opportunities such as mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures. The loan announcement came soon after Byju’s announced ten acquisitions in the edtech space — Tynker, Gradeup, TutorVista, Edurite, Math Adventures, Osmo, Whitehat Jr, Aakash Education Services, Epic, and Great Learning.

As its expansion plans progressed, the company delayed releasing its audited financial statements for two years (FY 20 and FY 21) till September 2022 — a seventeen-month delay. This caught the eye of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs which issued a letter to ‘Think & Learn’ — Byju’s parent company — seeking an explanation for the delay.

On September 14, the group finally released its audited financial statements for 2019-20 and 2020-21. As per the statements, Byju’s booked a loss of ₹4,588 crore for FY 21, nineteen times more than the preceding fiscal. The losses widened from ₹231.69 crore in 2019-20 to ₹4,588 crore in 2020-21, while revenue dropped from ₹2,511 crore in FY20 to ₹2,428 crore in FY21.

The company, however, stated that in FY 22 ending on March 31, 2022, revenue had soared to ₹10,000 crore but it did not disclose the profit or loss numbers for that year. Byju’s CEO Byju Raveendran attributed FY 21 losses to the deferment of some revenue and losses incurred from WhiteHat Jr.