Byju | Business Upturn

NCLT directs Byju’s to keep rights issue money in escrow account

Dimple Gehlot — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:39:54 +0000

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) issued an order on February 27 instructing Byju’s to place funds garnered from the rights issue into an escrow account until the resolution of a complaint filed by four investors citing oppression and mismanagement.

In addition, the tribunal urged Byju’s to consider extending the deadline for the rights issue closure to safeguard the petitioners’ rights to apply for shares under their entitlements without prejudice.

Moreover, the tribunal clarified that it has set aside the investors’ plea to halt the rights issue for judgment and has instructed the involved parties to submit written arguments for the case.

The directive from the tribunal, dated February 28, revealed that the authorities have been given a two-week period to reply upon receiving the notice, with an extra two weeks granted for submitting any response or rejoinder. The next hearing for the case is set for April 4, 2024.

This development follows NCLT’s decision to reserve judgment on interim measures in response to the investors’ complaint of oppression and mismanagement against Byju’s, made just a day prior.

WhiteHat Jr CEO resigns in a fresh exit from BYJU’s fully-owned subsidiary: Report

Sidharth Badlani — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 12:42:12 +0000

Ananya Tripathi, the CEO of the online teaching company WhiteHat Jr., is purportedly leaving and has consequently announced her resignation from the BYJU’s fully-owned subsidiary.WhiteHat Jr was created with the sole purpose of enabling children to use technology as creators rather than consumers.

Moneycontrol reports that Tripathi’s resignation, which comes after that of Himanshu Bajaj, Mukut Deepak, and Chief Business Officer Prathushya Agarwal, is the most recent senior-level departure from the financially troubled BYJU’s.

Moneycontrol claims that BYJU’s has not formally accepted her departure and that there are ongoing efforts to persuade her to stay. She graduated from McKinskey and has been on maternity leave since May, according to the story.

Tripathi, who joins from KKR Capstone where she most recently held the position of Managing Director, previously spent four years as the Chief Strategy Officer at Myntra.

Since returning to the troubled edtech behemoth in July to take over as its international operations leader, Arjun Mohan has been helping the WhiteHat team during Tripathi’s absence.

The Karan Bajaj-founded code learning platform was acquired by Bengaluru-based India’s most valuable startup in August 2020 for a cash payment of $300 million (about Rs. 2500 crore).

Bajaj remained CEO of WhiteHat Jr. until August 2021, when he stepped down. Trupti Mukker, the executive of BYJU’s, succeeded him, then Tripathi took over from her.

BYJU’s Senior VP Cherian Thomas resigns to take over as head of US-based company

Avinash Ram — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 15:13:31 +0000

Cherian Thomas, senior vice president for international business at BYJU, has left the company and will now serve as the company’s CEO for Impending, a US-based startup. According to a statement from Impending Inc, Thomas will concentrate on expanding and increasing the product range in his role as CEO. He will also work to strengthen and expand the worldwide talent pool. No answer was received to a letter addressed to BYJU’S. While confirming Thomas’ departure, a source from BYJU’S made no mention of who will take over as manager.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to welcome Cherian Thomas to the team. Impending co-founder Phill Ryu said, “We have persuaded each other that we are going to make it happen together because we have a goal of building innovative apps with pop culture potential without compromise.

According to the press announcement, Thomas, who is credited with being the driving force behind BYJU’s entry into the American market, was also in charge of directing operations at Osmo, a BYJU subsidiary, which generated over $100 million (about Rs. 830 crore) in revenue in FY21. In response to the announcement, he was credited with creating the international organization at BYJU’S back in 2017 when he joined as the company’s first foreign employee.

After selling the VC-backed firm to the Japanese conglomerate Cookpad in 2016, Thomas co-founded the culinary blogging site Cucumbertown in 2012. He worked for Zynga until their IPO in 2011, making him one of the company’s first employees. The developer of the Heads Up and Here Kitty video games as well as the listing app Clear is called Impending.

BYJU’S raises $250 million using structured instruments from Davidson Kempner

Sakshi Vats — Fri, 12 May 2023 19:01:48 +0000

As part of its ongoing $1 billion funding round, Indian edtech giant BYJU’S has received $250 million from US investment company Davidson Kempner Capital Management. The monetary the infusion brings relief to the Bengaluru-based company after an extended time of financial strain and regulatory difficulties.

People with insight into the situation claimed that the company is in advanced talks with a number of global investors, notably sovereign wealth funds situated in West Asia, to finalise the funding round.

Although the company has maintained its $22 billion value, the latest investment round is quite structured and is dependent on the public listing of its subsidiary Aakash Educational Services, according to sources.

The intentions for the Aakash IPO were confirmed in February by BYJU’S co-founder Divya Gokulnath. “We would like to list it in India and we are working on it. We have been planning it for a few months now,” she had stated.

In its most recent funding round, BYJU raised $250 million from its current investors, including Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), in October 2022. Since then, the company has been attempting to raise funds, especially to return a portion of the $1.2 billion it borrowed from an association of creditors in November 2021. According to sources, the firm has been negotiating the loan’s terms and requesting more time from its creditors.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently opened an investigation into the company for possible foreign exchange acts of violence. Three locations connected to BYJU’S had been inspected by the ED.

Byju Raveendran, the company’s founder and CEO, claimed in an internal email to his team that the focus was set on them as a result of the significant foreign funding they have received and the amount of international acquisitions they had done.

Raveendran informed his staff that the company had followed with all laws and that all transactions were being reviewed by experts.”BYJU’S has taken all efforts to fully comply with all applicable foreign exchange laws and all our cross- border transactions have been duly vetted by both its professional advisors/counsel and advisors/counsel of the investment funds and other sophisticated counterparties,” the note stated.

ED searches Byju’s office, residence over alleged FEMA violations

United News of India (UNI) — Sat, 29 Apr 2023 10:53:38 +0000

New Delhi, Apr 29: Directorate of Enforcement (ED) conducted searches at three premises’-two Business and one residential- of Raveendaran Byju and his company in Bengaluru over alleged violation of the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the ED said on Saturday.

According to a statement issued by ED, during the search and seizure action various documents and digital data were seized. ED searches under FEMA also revealed that the company allegedly received foreign direct investment of Rs 28000 crore during the period from 2011 to 2023.

“Further, the company has remitted Rs 9754 crore to various foreign jurisdictions during the same period in the name of overseas direct investment. The company has booked around Rs 944 crore in the name of advertisement and marketing expenses including the amount remitted to foreign jurisdiction,” claims ED in its statement.

“The company has not prepared its financial statements since the financial year 2020-21 and has not got the accounts audited which are mandatory. Hence, the genuineness of the figures provided by the company is being cross examined from the banks,” it said.

“Investigation against the platform was initiated on the basis of various complaints received from various private persons. During an investigation conducted by the ED, several summonses were issued to the founder and CEO Raveendaran Byju, however, he always remained evasive and never appeared during the investigation,” the statement said.

ED said that the probe is underway.

Karan Bajaj leaves WhiteHat Jr, Trupti Mukker to take over position

Aayushi Singh — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 09:32:26 +0000

The CEO and Founder, Karan Bajaj, of the online learning platform WhiteHat Jr, has moved on to start the next chapter of his life and the Head of Customer and Delivery, Trupti Mukker, would be the lead of the organisation.

Byju Raveendran, the Founder and CEO of the leading edtech firm Bjju’s had sent an internal email to its employees which said that Karan was ready to progress onto the next chapter of his life and that they had mutually decided at the time of acquisition.

Mr Raveendran said in the email that in the current week, they would have completed one year of joining of the WhiteHat Jr in the Byju’s family. He mentioned Trupti Mukker would lead the organisation which was skilfully supported by the strong leadership team that was set up by Karan and Byju. Mr Raveendran was the Head of Customer Experience and Delivery.
He was the Head of Customer Experience and Delivery.

In the previous year, Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr, a Mumbai based live online coding provider, in an all cash deal of worth $300 million.
In 2018, WhiteHat Jr was founded by Bajaj with a vision to make children creators of technology rather than being passive consumers of it.

The WhiteHat Jr has forayed into 1:1 online music classes, and also brought up physical digital blended coding curriculum to Indian Schools with an aim to teach over 10 lakh students till the next academic year, originally WhiteHat Jr was only a Math and Coding learning platform.

According to Raveendran, WhiteHat Jr and Byju’s Future School, under Bajaj’s leadership, would allow many students in the world daily to learn and create with more than 11,000 teachers.

Bajaj said that he would be fully present in the transition and intends to carve out a career in public interest as the next step.

Bajaj had said that three years ago, WhiteHat Jr was just an idea and now they were a team of more than 17,000 employees and teachers in countries around the world, like India, UK, Australia, US and Latin America, etc.

Bajaj had written three bestseller novels which were published by HarperCollins-India and Penguin Random House. His three novels were Keep off the Grass, Johnny Gone Down, and The Seeker, in India, these novels altogether sold over 200,000 copies.

Bajaj served as the CEO for Discovery South Asia, he was a graduate of IIM Banglore.
Bajaj in the past had been associated with companies like P&G, BCG and Kraft Foods Group.

Currently, more than 11,000-strong teacher workforce conducts thousands of Live Coding, Math and Music online classes every day on its platform.

Cumulatively, the company has conducted more than 8.5 million classes to date.

Byju’s $1 Billion deal to acquire Aakash Educational Services

Govindraj Muttepawar — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 12:29:26 +0000

BYJU’S, the world’s leading education-tech company has announced its strategic partnership with Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL). According to sources, the deal is worth close to USD 1 billion (about 7,300 crores) — making it the biggest acquisition by Byju’s to date.

India’s biggest online-education startup Byju’s on Monday said that it has acquired brick & mortar test prep leader Aakash Educational Services Ltd through a strategic merger. Bjyu’s added that it will make further investments to accelerate Aakash’s growth. Post-acquisition, Aakash Educational Services will continue to function independently under the leadership of Founder JC Chaudhry and Aakash Chaudhry.

Byju Raveendran said, “I am happy to have Aakash Educational Services Limited (AESL), a market leader and the most trusted name in the test prep services, on board with us. Our complementary strengths will enable us to build capabilities, create engaging and personalized learning programs. The future of learning is hybrid and this union will bring together the best of offline and online learning, as we combine our expertise to create impactful experiences for students.”

India’s second-most valuable startup is backed by the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Tiger Global Management and Bond Capital, co-founded by Silicon Valley investor Mary Meeker.

Aakash Chaudhry, Managing Director and Co-promoter of Aakash Educational, said the two firms joining forces will offer “Very substantial and value-additive services to students.” The leadership at Aakash Educational will stay with the firm after the acquisition.

The acquisition will enable the two entities to build the largest omni-channel for students in India, he said. “Students who have wanted to access physical classrooms have gotten that from us. And those who wanted to access content and learning online has been served by Byju’s. Together, we will leverage the physical location and technology and online learning and offer students that is unique,” he said.

Byju’s to acquire Aakash Education Services Ltd for $1 billion

Sarthak Yadav — Tue, 12 Jan 2021 17:59:17 +0000

Byju’s which is tagged as India’s biggest online education startup is all set to acquire test prep leader Aakash Educational Services Ltd for $1 billion according to sources, as reported by Mint.

Mint reported that the deal will become the largest edtech acquisitions in the world and is said to close in the next two or three months, revealed the unidentified source.

Byju’s was founded by Byju Raveendran, a former teacher and the son of educators, who conceived the smartphone app in 2011. The Banglore based edtech giant is valued at $12 billion and has gained investors attention due to rise in demand of online lessons during the pandemic.

Byju’s is India’s second-most valuable startup is backed by the likes of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Tiger Global Management and Bond Capital, co-founded by Silicon Valley investor Mary Meeker.

Blackstone Group-backed Aakash Educational Services runs Aakash Institute, which has over 200 centers and tutors students to gain entry into the country’s elite engineering and medical schools.

Its student count is over 250,000, according to its website. While online learning startups have thrived, offline tutoring centers have been badly hit by the pandemic, which has closed schools and tutoring centers since March last year.

According to the terms of deal Aakash’s founders, the Chaudhry family, will exit completely, while Blackstone will swap a portion of its 37.5% equity in Aakash for Byju’s stake, as reported by Mint.

‘Aakash’ test prep institute appoints Byju’s International Head Abhishek Maheshwari as CEO

Shlok Arya — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 06:43:30 +0000

On Tuesday, Abhishek Maheshwari became the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Aakash Educational Service Limited (AESL). Earlier, he was the president of International Business for Byju’s. He was then responsible for driving the growth of the ed-tech firm.

He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) and Columbia Business School, New York. He has worked in McKinsey, a consulting firm, and Kubera Partners, a private equity firm.

In 2019, private equity giant Blackstone bought a 37.5 percent stake in Aakash, and its values at $500 million.

In a statement, Aakash Education Service Ltd said, “Abhishek will be responsible for strategy formulating and management of core offerings, which include digital along with classroom, hybrid, and distance learning.”

Byju’s a 12-billion-dollar firm aiming to expand internationally, including the US market. Towards this aim, in 2019, Byju’s acquired US-based Osmo, which will offer learning solutions for kids from ages 3-8, for $120 million.

In 2019, Byju’s bought Whitehat Jr for $300 million is also targeting the US market for expansion.