BYJU’S Promoters Sold Shares Worth $409 Mn Since 2015

Promoters of troubled edtech decacorn BYJU’S, Byju Raveendran, Divya Gokulnath and Riju Ravindran have together sold shares worth around $408.53 Mn in 40 secondary transactions since 2015, according to an analysis by market intelligence platform PrivateCircle Research.

As per the analysis, Byju Raveendran individually sold 29,306 shares worth $3.28 Mn, whereas his wife and cofounder Divya Gokulnath sold 64,565 shares worth $29.40 Mn, and brother Riju Ravindran sold 337,911 shares worth $375.83 Mn since 2015.

Over the years, multiple investors participated in BYJU’S secondary transactions, including the likes of Silver Lake Partners, Blackrock, T Rowe Price, Chan Zuckerberg, Owl Ventures, Naspers, Times Internet, Lightspeed Ventures, Proxima Beta, Naspers Ventures, General Atlantic, and Alkeon.

“BYJU’S promoters have put back the entire secondary raised back into the business to scale it up further over the years,” a company spokesperson said.

On the other hand, Byju Raveendran purchased 31,960 shares from multiple sellers including Ravindran Kunnaruvath, Byju Raveendran’s father, and several BYJU’S employees.

Further, Divya Gokulnath purchased a total 4,666 shares from Vidyartha founders Navin Balan and Priya Mohan. Back in 2017, BYJU’S acquired Vidhyartha in 2017. Riju Ravindran also purchased 100 shares from BYJU’S COO Mrinal Mohit.

Currently, BYJU’S promoters together hold a 21% stake in the edtech firm. Individually, Byju Raveendran holds 15.90%, whereas Divya Gokulnath and Riju Ravindran have 3.32% and 1.99% respectively.

As per PrivateCircle analysis, promoters’ shareholding in the company has gradually dropped since 2016. The first significant drop was between 2015-2016, when the promoters’ stake dipped from 71.6% to 54.7% and later came down to 34.7% in 2019 and 21.2% in 2023.

BYJU’S three board members, including GV Ravishankar, MD of Peak XV Partners, Russell Dreisenstock of Prosus and Chan Zuckerberg’s Vivian Wu, resigned from its board last month due to a breakdown in trust and communication between them and BYJU’S cofounder and CEO Byju Raveendran.

BYJU’S statutory auditor Deloitte Haskins & Sells also resigned due to the delay in the company’s filing of FY22 financial results. The edtech decacorn released its FY21 financial statements after a delay of nearly 12 months. It reported a loss of INR 4,588 Cr in FY21, a jump of a massive 1,880%, or 19.8X, from INR 231.69 Cr in FY20.

The company has undertaken several rounds of mass layoffs. Last month, it set the process for another round of layoffs, which would impact more than 1,000 employees. In October last year, it laid off more than 2,500 employees across multiple subsidiaries.

As per Inc42’s layoff tracker, BYJU’S has fired over 4,000 employees since 2022, excluding the most recent layoffs, amid a business slowdown and mounting troubles.

(The copy has been edited to add BYJU’S statement)