BYJU'S founder Byju Raveendran out of Hurun India Rich List 2023 amid investor markdowns

Edtech major BYJU'S co-founder Byju Raveendran is conspicuous by his absence from Hurun India Rich List 2023 on the back of a series of investor markdowns. The development comes months after investors such as US-based BlackRock and Prosus have slashed the firm's valuation.

In Hurun India Rich List 2022, Raveendran's personal wealth was seen at $3.3 billion.

BYJU'S largest non-founder shareholder Prosus has slashed the worth of its stake in the edtech giant in June this year. Prosus said at the time that it has downsized the value of its 9.6 per cent stake in BYJU'S to around $493 million in financial year ending March this year, implying a lowered valuation of $5.1 billion.

Prosus said that as of September last year, it “no longer exerts significant influence over the financial and operating policies” of BYJU’s. A month earlier, US-based investment management firm BlackRock slashed the valuation of BYJU’s by around 62 per cent.

BlackRock, which owns less than one per cent equity in the edtech startup, fixed the value of the company’s shares at $4,043,471, estimating BYJU’S fair value at $8.4 billion as of March 31, 2023. In April this year, BlackRock slashed the valuation of BYJU’s by about 50 per cent from $22 billion to $11.5 billion.

In February this year, a BlackRock-managed fund had cut the value of its investment in BYJU’S by around 50 per cent to $2,400 per share in its annual report for the year ended December 2022. With this, the firm’s valuation went down to around $11 billion.

Not only this, representatives of Prosus, Peak XV Partners and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative also exited the board of BYJU’S. These resignations came after Deloitte told the board that it was also resigning from its role as the auditor of the edtech firm. Deloitte said that the edtech firm failed to hand over financial results for the year ended March 2022.

BYJU’S is among the several Indian startups including Ola, OYO, PineLabs, Meesho, and PharmEasy that have seen their valuations plummet.

The company reported a loss to the tune of Rs 4,588 crore for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. In 2020-21, the edtech firm reported a significant rise in its losses from Rs 231.69 crore in 2019-20.

In FY21, the company logged a dip in its revenues to Rs 2,428 crore from Rs 2,511 crore in FY20. The company's revenues bounced back in the fiscal ending March 31, 2022 as revenues surged by four times to Rs 10,000 crore.

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