Under public scrutiny for losses, layoffs and a toxic work culture, the edtech unicorn says last fiscal the strongest, FY21 losses cut down to half
In an email that he sent to 50,000 employees on Monday, Byju Raveendran borrowed a quote from the movie Rocky Balboa and said the year hasn’t been “all sunshine and rainbows” for the company. After an over-a-year wait, on September 14, Byju’s revealed the company’s FY21 (2020-21) financials: The world’s most-valued edtech company Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, which runs the education platform, has now become the world’s most expensive edtech company for investors after a decline in its FY21 revenue that led to an increase in its revenue multiple.
The company incurred a total loss of Rs 4,589 crore for FY21, a 20x jump from Rs 232 crore in FY20. Their total income on a consolidated basis declined by 3.3 percent to Rs 2,428.3 crore in FY21 from Rs 2,511.7 crore in the previous year. Byju’s, which has seen a degrowth in FY21, claims that much of the losses are due to changes in the way it recognises multi-year revenue such as that earned from its streaming services for recorded classes. The edtech giant readjusted its unaudited revenues for FY21 following two key changes sought by its official audit firm Deloitte Haskins & Sells.