Byju Raveendran, the founder of the embattled edtech group Byju’s, acknowledged on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, and that his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now effectively worth “zero.”
Speaking to a group of journalists, Raveendran said the company’s aggressive acquisition of more than two dozen startups to expand into new markets proved fatal when financing dried up in 2022. Byju’s was planning to go public in early 2022 with several investment bankers giving the firm valuation as high as $50 billion, TechCrunch reported earlier.
He alleged that many of his more than 100 investors had urged him to pursue aggressive expansion into as many as 40 markets. But, he added, those very investors got cold feet when global markets tumbled following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, sending the venture capital market into a downward spiral.
Raveendran said many of his investors “ran away,” and the departure of three key backers – Prosus Ventures, Peak XV, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative – from the company’s board last year made it impossible for the startup to raise additional funds.
Representatives of the aforementioned three firms as well as auditor Deloitte left the startup’s board last year, citing governance issues.
Byju’s has since entered insolvency proceedings, and Raveendran, who no longer controls the company, said: “It’s worth zero. What valuation are you talking about? It’s worth zero.”
Byju’s, once India’s most valuable startup, counts BlackRock, UBS, Lightspeed, QIA, Bond, Silver Lake, Sofina, Verlinvest, Tencent, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Owl Ventures, and World Bank’s IFC among its backers. It has raised more than $5 billion to date.
Raveendran said he remains hopeful that his startup will make a comeback. “I have nothing to lose. I came from a small village. I invested everything I had into the startup.”