Prosus marks down Byju's stake, valuing edtech giant at less than $3 billion

Prosus cuts India's Byju's valuation to under $3 billion

Tech investor Prosus has marked down the value of its stake in Byju's, resulting in a company valuation of less than $3 billion, representing an 86 percent decline from the previous funding round valuation of $22 billion.

This marks the third time in a year that Prosus has downgraded Byju's valuation. In June, Moneycontrol reported that 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 last year, Prosus first slashed the fair value of Byju's to $5.97 billion.

Earlier in July, Prosus’ representative on Byju’s board, Russell Dreisenstock, stepped down from the edtech company, later citing poor reporting and governance structures as reasons behind the exit.

The series of board exits came at a time when the company had come under fire for a host of issues including delayed financial results, and the resignation of its auditor, Deloitte. Along with Dreisenstock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s Vivian Wu and , and Peak XV Partners (Sequoia Capital India)’s GV Ravishankar also stepped down in July.

The new development also follows fresh troubles for Byju's as the Enforcement Directorate (ED) confirmed sending a show cause notice to edtech company Think and Learn Private Limited and Byju Raveendran in the FEMA violation case.

Meanwhile, the company has come under fire for delaying full and final settlements of laid-off employees yet again. The Bengaluru-based company had earlier shifted the date of payment from September to November.

Recently, the company overcame a longstanding issue with Davidson Kempner, linked with covenants on Byju’s’ subsidiary Aakash. Earlier in November, Manipal Group chairman Ranjan Pai bought out the debt investment by the US Hedge Fund, in a Rs 1,400-crore deal, Moneycontrol reported.

Meanwhile in September, Byju's also submitted a proposal to its lenders, in which the company expressed its intention to fully repay its $1.2 billion term loan B within the upcoming six months. Byju's aims to achieve this by making an initial payment of $300 million within the next three months.

As part of its efforts to secure the necessary funds for loan repayment, the company has also decided to undertake a strategic review of its key assets.

For this, Byju’s has put upskilling platform Great Learning and book reading platform Epic, up for sale, which would yield the company about $1 billion, Moneycontrol reported.