Byju’s, now worth $1 billion only.
Edtech firm Byju’s, once India’s most valuable startup at $22 billion, has seen a massive (95%) drop in its valuation, and is now worth $1 billion.
Asset manager BlackRock, at the end of October 2023, valued its shares in Byju’s at $209.6 apiece, translating to a valuation of $1 billion, as against a peak of $4660 apiece in 2022, which translated to $22 billion. The asset manager owns a stake of less than 1% in the Bengaluru-based company.
In a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on January 5, 2024 BlackRock marked down the valuation of its shares in Byju’s parent Think & Learn, for the third time during the course of 2023, at $209.57 apiece for the quarter ended October.
BlackRock, like other mutual fund investors, makes multiple disclosures about its portfolio in a year, without, however, explaining the rationale behind worth valuation adjustments. Also, this is not the first time when the asset manager has slashed the worth of its holdings in the embattled edtech major.
Additionally, BlackRock is not the only investor that has severely downgraded their valuation of the startup, though this is, by far, the most drastic adjustment of the Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath-founded company. Prosus, which has a stake of around 9%, said late last year that its estimation of the unicorn stood at ‘sub $3 billion.’
The downgrade marks a stunning reversal of fortune for Byju’s, which spent more than $2.5 billion in 2021 and 2022, acquiring more than half a dozen firms globally. Byju’s, which has been backed by Peak XV Partners, Lightspeed, UBS, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, has raised over $5 billion across equity and debt, in the past decade.
The Bengaluru-based edtech company has seen a significant decline in the scale of its operations over the last two years and is looking to sell group assets to clear debt. Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran has been struggling to raise new financing, leading to delays in November salary payouts and other operating challenges.
Once India’s most valued startup, it has been struggling to pay staff salaries while it scouts for buyers of group assets such as Epic and Great Learning. Byju’s is looking to clear a $1.2 billion term loan it had raised in November 2021.
Founder Raveendran has been under pressure from investors to step aside from day-to-day operations. The company’s new India CEO Arjun Mohan fired at least 4,500 employees in September 2023 in a bid to cut costs. Peak XV Partners, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, General Atlantic are among Byju’s invetsors.
