Edtech giant Byju’s, which is often considered India’s most valuable start-up, is now coping with large decreases in its worth as a result of recent occurrences that have damaged investor trust in the firm.
According to its annual report, the publicly traded company in the Netherlands that invests in technology, Prosus, recently reduced the worth of the struggling edtech start-up to $5.1 billion. This is a drop of more than 75 percent compared to the start-up’s enormous value of $22 billion from the previous year.
According to the report, Prosus decreased the value of its 9.6 percent share in Byju’s during the financial year that ended in March, bringing it down to around $493 million. This comes only a few days after it, along with other investors, resigned from Byju’s board of directors.
The edtech company Prosus is the largest shareholder in the business. Counting General Atlantic and BlackRock among its supporters, Byju’s also counts investors as some of its backers. However, the investment management company BlackRock, which is located in the United States, has reduced its assessment of Byju on many occasions. In the beginning of this year, it decreased by Byju’s to 8.3 billion dollars.
Valuation reduction despite many hurdles
Byju’s is now struggling through a difficult period that is characterised by continuing investigations and recurring firings of employees.
The recent departures of three investor board members as well as Deloitte, the company that served as its auditor, have made its issues much worse.
It is also defending itself against a lawsuit brought against it in the United States for a loan of $1.2 billion. This complaint was filed many weeks after raids were conducted due to alleged breaches of regulations governing foreign exchange.
According to a report by the news agency Reuters, Byju’s recently informed investors that it would submit audited profits for 2022 by the end of September and results for 2023 by the end of December.
