Byju’s is weighing whether or not to wind down WhiteHat Jr, a coding platform that it acquired over two years in the past at an enterprise worth of $300 million, because the edtech group appears to be like to chop bills and remove a enterprise unit that has drawn appreciable criticism to the agency.
The Bengaluru-headquartered agency, India’s Most worthy startup at $22 billion valuation, has held conversations in current weeks about shutting down what was as soon as touted as one in every of its greatest acquisitions, three sources conversant in the matter advised ClassyBuzz. It has not reached the choice but, based on a separate individual conversant in the matter.
The discussions come at a time when Byju’s is slicing prices throughout the corporate. The agency, which has laid off 1000’s of staff and pared again on advertising and marketing bills, was till not too long ago spending about $14 million a month on the coding platform, one of many sources stated.
A Byju’s spokesperson declined to remark.
Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr in 2020 at an enterprise worth of $300 million. A substantial quantity of the payout was tied to future progress metrics. Byju’s finally spent lower than $235 million on the acquisition deal, one of many aforementioned sources stated who, like others, requested anonymity discussing personal issues.
The coding unit has drawn criticism from many for its deceptive claims and aggressive techniques to courtroom college students. WhiteHat Jr famously additionally sued a few of these critics, a transfer that attracted the agency much more backlash. It later withdrew the lawsuit. WhiteHat Jr founder Karan Bajaj (pictured above) left Byju’s a 12 months after the acquisition.
Byju’s — which counts Sequoia India, Lightspeed Enterprise Companions, Tiger International, B Capital, UBS and Basic Atlantic amongst its backers — has spent the previous one 12 months addressing many criticisms levelled on the agency. Byju’s stated final month that its gross sales folks now not visited college students’ houses to pitch to their mother and father and the agency now conducts a check to find out whether or not a child’s mother and father can afford to subscribe to the service earlier than signing them up.
