Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath, the founders of Indian ed-tech giant BYJU’s, are planning to increase their stake in the company to about 40% and have initiated talks with investors. Currently, Raveendran and Gokulnath jointly hold around 25% stake in the company.
Some of the investors of BYJU’s include Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Prosus Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Bond, Silver Lake, Owl Ventures, UBS, Blackrock and Sands Capital Management among others. BYJU’s had raised $250 million in its last funding round at an enterprise valuation of $22 billion.
Speaking to news agency PTI on Wednesday (January 4), a person familiar with the developments said, “There is an intention of Byju’s founders to double their stake in the company. The discussions are at exploratory level with investors to raise debt.”
In May last year, BYJU’s founders raised their stake from 23% to 25% in an $800 million funding round led by Byju Raveendran.
In the financial year 2020-21, BYJU’s reported a loss of Rs 4,588 crore compared to Rs 232 crore in 2019-20. Revenues also recorded a drop in FY21 to Rs 2,428 crore from Rs 2,511 crore in FY20, PTI reported on Wednesday.
The ed-tech giant has claimed it will turn profitable by March and is planning to focus more on inside sales calls, email, and video calling to reduce operational costs.
(With inputs from agencies)
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