Karan Bajaj, founder of WhiteHat Jr, on Wednesday announced his exit from the company, a year after the coding platform was acquired by edtech giant Byju's. Trupti Mukker, who was the head of customer experience and delivery, will now lead the organisation. In a post on LinkedIn, Bajaj shared the announcement of his departure from a company he founded in 2018.
Next month, the edtech start-up, that teaches coding to kids online, is launching operations in five new markets - the UK, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore.
Bajaj sold his 18-month-old start-up WhiteHat Jr to Byju Raveendran for $300 million in an all-cash deal - over the video conferencing platform Zoom. The deal is the biggest in the Indian edtech sector by far.
'If you look at assets truly working for us, you should look at Aakash and Great Learning.'
A consortium of shareholders with over 30 per cent stake in cash-strapped Byju's might approach the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking a management change, if the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) scheduled for Friday failed to yield an 'amicable settlement' or faced further delays, sources said. Earlier this month, these shareholders had issued a notice calling for an EGM to address "persistent issues", including a change in management. They will vote for a revamp of the existing board, an exercise which would include asking Byju Raveendran to step down as chief executive officer (CEO) and relinquish his operational role, according to sources.
In continuation of the recent trend, another edtech major has issued pink slips to hundreds of employees. Bengaluru-based Byju's - valued at $22 billion - has laid off about 500 employees at its group companies -WhiteHat Jr and Toppr. It's a move to drive cost efficiency, according to the company. The number of layoffs, cutting across various department functions, may increase, sources said.
'Byju's financials only reflect the core business. At a group level, they are experiencing substantial losses.'
Edtech major Byju's may lay off up to 3,500 employees during the current fiscal as it looks to consolidate teams and enhance regional focus, sources privy to the development said. According to one of the sources, Byju's had "over hired" people at the time of Covid pandemic due to sudden jump in online education, but the demand has now receded, for which the company needs to do course correction. "There has been no retrenchment as of now.
BlackRock has again reduced the valuation of its share in edtech firm Byju's - this time to about $1 billion, TechCrunch reported on Friday, citing disclosures made by the US-based asset manager. This is 95 per cent less than its peak valuation of $22 billion in 2022. The markdown comes at a time when the company is facing a multitude of challenges, including securing fresh capital, delays in financial reporting and legal disputes with lenders.
Byju Raveendran, CEO and founder of the eponymous edtech giant, has told shareholders that the company will set up a board advisory committee (BAC). This was part of a discussion on July 4 with shareholders at an emergency general meeting (EGM). Raveendran also said that in the next EGM in three weeks will give details about BAC's members and composition.
With investors asking for a change in the board structure at Byju's, the edtech giant's founder and chief executive officer (CEO), Byju Raveendran, is now asking them to put $300 million into the company for more control. The company has rung up $5.8 billion from investors such as General Atlantic, Sofina, the Qatar Investment Authority, Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners, BlackRock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Tencent, and Tiger Global.
Parents should enroll their children in coding classes only as a leisure time activity, that too with strict curbs on screen time.
This, Byju, was the time to apply the business lens, treat your company as a business, run your company as a business. Instead, you splurged, observes Suveen Sinha.
'India's edtech and start-up story will be in danger.'
Edtech giant Byju's is set to lay off nearly 2,500, or 5 per cent, of its employees as part of an "optimisation" plan. The move by India's most valuable start-up comes amid a funding winter and steep losses. "To avoid redundancies and duplication of roles, and by leveraging technology better, around 5 per cent of Byju's 50,000-strong workforce is expected to be rationalised across product, content, media, and technology teams in a phased manner," said the company in a statement. In June, Byju's laid off about 600 employees at its group companies -WhiteHat Jr and Toppr.
The stock-and-cash deal is the biggest in the education space.
Byju's, says Anita Kishore, has given the founders of the businesses it has acquired the independence to operate separately and maintain their core culture.
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
Edtech major Byju's has raised over Rs 363 crore (about USD 50 million) in funding from Maitri Edtech and IIFL's private equity fund, according to regulatory documents. Over the past few months, Byju's has raised funding from a slew of investors that has placed the edtech major among the most-valued start-ups in the country. Byju's is estimated to have raised about $2.3 billion in funding so far with valuation touching $6.5 billion.
'This is a race where every technology can be used by the bad guys and good guys.'
On a cloudy Monday this month, Mohammed Irshad flew from Kochi to Gurugram to attend an exclusive investor networking event. Among a handful of founders selected for the event, Irshad was to pitch his peer-to-peer learning start-up Notespaedia for funding in front of top venture capital investors such as AngelBay, Elevation Capital, and Inflection Point Ventures. He failed to woo them, but the feisty entrepreneur was determined to continue his hunt.
Falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment seem to have prompted many start-ups to lay off employees in a bid to conserve cash. The latest to do so is SoftBank-backed Cars24, a leading e-commerce platform for pre-owned vehicles, which has laid off over 600 staff, according to sources in the know. The move, they said, is aimed at conserving cash amid cautious investor sentiment and a slowdown in funding.
The reopening of schools and colleges has sparked a crisis in the edtech sector with falling valuations, slowing funding rounds and faltering investor sentiment. In a totally altered, post-pandemic landscape where students are back at school and colleges, companies are scrambling to revert to bricks-and-mortar tuition centres and adopting a hybrid model of offline and online education. Demand for online tuition has fallen, affecting the revenue of edtech companies in recent months. After two years of booming revenues, some experts say the sector is looking at a possible meltdown.
Unacademy may see a funding dry spell for at least next 12-18 months and even last till 24 months and will cut costs to weather the lean period, said the chief executive of the education technology unicorn that recently laid off more than 600 employees. "This is a test for all of us. We must learn to work under constraints and focus on profitability at all costs. We must survive the winter," said Unacademy's co-founder and CEO Gaurav Munjal in a letter to the employees. "Winter is here. We are looking at a time when the funding will dry up for at least 12-18 months.
Remember, the security of your job primarily depends on two major factors -- how relevant you are for the organisation and how the organisation is aligned to its stakeholders (investors, clients and employees)
'Why is the government asking parents to be careful rather than coming up with strict rules and regulations for the companies?'
Live lessons help students strengthen their JEE preparation. They can also track their progress over time, identify strong and weak areas, get insights on overall test-taking strategy.
While BlackRock is an existing investor in Byju's, T Rowe joined as a new investor.
This year's list includes 40 influential people under 40 years of age in five categories -- finance, technology, healthcare, government and politics, and media and entertainment.
Education technology, grocery, fashion, food delivery and UPI payments surpassed volumes or revenues of February, in the September-October period.
A slew of Indian firms, including Flipkart, Byju's and Zomato, is building a path to profitability and diversifying into newer business segments ahead of mega-IPO plans.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances