Byju’s targets profitability by next year; FY22 results in second week of October

BENGALURU:  Edtech firm Byju’s, which will be announcing its FY22 results in the second week of October, is targeting to achieve profitability by the middle of next year. The company had previously targeted profitability by March 2023.

A few months ago, the firm’s founder Byju Raveendran said that the company is close to achieving profitability at the group level. Despite the challenges faced by tech companies globally, Byju has made substantial progress towards this significant milestone. He had said that the company is now growing slowly but sustainably and most of its business verticals are in good shape.

In October last year, the company laid off 5% of its workforce and said it has been taking various measures to achieve profitability in the defined time frame of March 2023. In recent months, the company has been making many organisational changes, and on Saturday it announced, “Think and Learn Pvt Ltd today(Saturday) has issued a notice for convening a Board meeting in the second week of Oct’2023 for approval and adoption of accounts for FY’22. The Board of Directors along with the Advisory Council and certain invitees will meet to formally adopt the audited accounts.” The tech company will also lay off about 4,000 employees over the coming weeks, as a part of the restructuring exercise under the new CEO Arjun Mohan.

In FY21, the company reported a consolidated loss of R4,588 crore compared to R262 crore in the previous fiscal. After almost 18 months’ delay, Byju’s parent Think and Learn disclosed its financial results for FY21 in September last year. The revenue for FY21 of the group stood at R2,428 crore.

The firm is also planning to repay the $1.2 billion term loan B within the next six months. It will clear the loan amount by selling Great Learning and Epic, which were acquired in 2021. Byju acquired US-based reading platform Epic for $500 million and Great Learning, a professional learning platform, for about $600 million.

These developments have come after the ed-tech firm formed an Advisory Council. Former SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar and former CFO of Infosys TV Mohandas Pai joined the council, which is playing a significant role in advising and mentoring Byju’s Board and Byju Raveendran.