BENGALURU: Edtech major Byju’s is said to be in talks with various investors to raise over $500 million. According to reports, the company is in negotiations with many investors including TPG, a private equity firm.
This comes at a time when the company is struggling with mounting losses. It also cut 5% jobs- around 2,500- across product, content, media and technology teams. When TNIE contacted Byju’s and TPG, both declined to comment on the same.
The company in October announced that it is taking a slew of optimisation measures to ensure sustainable growth alongside strong revenue growth. The company expects that these measures will help achieve profitability by March 2023. In October last year, the edtech major took an unsecured loan of Rs 300 crore from its subsidiary tuition chain Aakash Educational Services that it acquired for $950 million in 2021.
According to regulatory filings, the unsecured loan was granted to the edtech giant at 7.50% interest rate.
Byju’s reported consolidated loss of Rs 4,589 crore in FY21, up from over Rs 260 crore in the previous fiscal. Last month, the edtech company rolled out a 4-tier tech-driven internal sales process replacing its existing direct sales process. It said the 4-tier process begins with educating an incoming lead about Byju’s product portfolio and its new refund policy over a live Zoom session that is recorded for future audit.