Prosus reduces Byju's fair value further to $5.1 billion

Byju's co-founder, Byju Raveendran

Prosus, Byju's largest stakeholder, has further slashed the fair value of the company to $5.1 billion, adding to the never-ending list of issues for India's most-valued startup.

Prosus has pegged the fair value of its 9.6 percent stake in Byju's at $493 million, effectively valuing the company at $5.1 billion. Byju's was last officially valued at over $22 billion in October 2022, when it raised a $250 million funding round. In November, Prosus first slashed the fair value of Byju's to $5.97 billion.

Since September 2022, Prosus began classifying the edtech giant as a non-controlling financial investment rather than an associate as its shareholding fell below 10 percent and thus the company valued Byju's differently, experts had explained then.

In its annual report released on June 27, Prosus said, "The group lost significant influence during the current year due to the loss of board representation."

Prosus' annual report indicating the markdown of Byju's comes three days after the European investor's representative on the edtech firm's board, Russel Deisenstock, stepped down. Along with Dreisentock, Peak XV Partners' GV Ravishankar (formerly Sequoia Capital India) and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's Vivian Wu also stepped down from the company's board due to differences with founder Byju Raveendran over operational issues.

Byju's, currently, has just three members on its board and all three are founders and Raveendran's family members.