Byju's Lays Off Another 1,000 Employees Across All Departments As Part Of Rejig

The fresh round of firing comes at a time when the company has entered into a legal battle with lenders in the US for $1 billion term loan B

Byju's had announced cutting about 5 per cent of 2,500 employees over six months starting October 2022 as it unveiled the company's plan to become profitable by March 2023.

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Indian edtech major Byju's has laid off close to 1,000 employees across departments as part of its restructuring process, sources aware of the development said on Monday. The fresh round of firing comes at a time when the company has entered into a legal battle with lenders in the US for $1 billion term loan B.

"Byju's has laid off close to 1,000 employees. However, the final headcount of the company remains around 50,000 because of the addition of new employees," a source aware of the development told PTI.

Byju's had announced cutting about 5 per cent of 2,500 employees over six months starting October 2022 as it unveiled the company's plan to become profitable by March 2023. "The recent layoff is part of the company's cost optimisation process," the source said. An email query sent to Byju 's by the news agency elicited no reply.

In 2022, Byju’s said that it would fire 5 per cent or 2,500 employees as part of an “optimisation” strategy. To avoid redundancies and duplication of roles, and by leveraging technology better, around 5 per cent of Byju’s 50,000-strong workforce was expected to be rationalised across product, content, media, and technology teams in a phased manner.

Currently, Byju’s is fighting debt woes and a legal case in the US courts. Byju’s asked a New York court to intervene in its dispute with lenders owed more than $1 billion.

The pink slips come at a time when the company has defaulted on payment of $40 million to lenders in the US and also filed a case in the New York Supreme Court as lenders accelerated demand for a $1.2-billion Term Loan B. The case also petitions to disqualify investment management firm Redwood who, contrary to the terms of TLB, purchased a significant portion of the loan while primarily trading in distressed debt.

Byju’s has raised $6 billion in total from investors like Qatar Investment Authority, BlackRock, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Sequoia, Silver Lake, Bond Capital, Tencent, General Atlantic, and Tiger Global.