Except for the Bengaluru headquarters, situated in Knowledge Park, Byju’s has shut down all its offices across India. It has asked its employees to work from home till further notice.
The tuition centres, however, will remain open. There are about 300 of them across the country. It is reported that as part of a restructuring exercise, last year, Arjun Mohan, CEO, Byju’s, had reportedly already taken a decision to close down offices on expiry of their lease. The closure of all offices now is expected to help tide over the finance crunch being faced by the edtech startup.
Despite having raised $200 million via rights issue, the company is unable to access or use the funds due to some objections by investors. These funds, raised via special stock sale, are being safeguarded in a separate account as per the orders of some important investors. As a result, Byju’s is unable to use them to clear the pending salaries of its employees. The Bengaluru bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has instructed Byju’s to keep the proceeds from the rights issue in a separate account until the resolution of the case with investors.
Not surprisingly, the processing of salaries for February at the edtech major was delayed twice over. Finally, partial disbursement of salaries happened early this week.
Recently, in an internal communication, Raveendran, founder and CEO, Byju’s, expressed regret in a letter to over 20,000 employees, citing challenges in processing salaries last month due to capital shortages and the current delay despite available funds.
