Byjus raises more Rs 3,600 cr and says its fundraising plans are on track

Edtech platform BYJUOn Monday, the company said the company has received funds from 11 of the 13 investors in a Rs 3,600 crore financing round that started in June last year.



New York-based Oxshott invested Rs 1,200 crore in September 2021 as part of the Series F round for Rs 285,072 per share, which is yet to come.

“In addition, Oxshott was not leading the round. In fact, they were one of the last investors to come in for that round. Out of the total Rs 3,600 crore, Rs 2,400 crore has already come in,” a company spokesperson told IANS.

Other investors in the round included Edelweiss (Rs 344.9 crore), IIFL (Rs 110 crore), Verition Multi-Strategy Master Fund (Rs 147 crore) and XN Exponent Holdings (Rs 150 crore).

The Morning Context first reported that “money from Oxshott Capital Partners or related entities for an investment has not reached the company”.

Oxshott Venture Fund X LLC and DRD Holdings SARL are both investment vehicles of Oxshott Capital.

It is common for investment funds to set up separate investment vehicles for compliance/internal structuring purposes to deploy investments.

In the current case, the investor has requested that his investment be routed through DRD Holdings SARL (instead of Oxshott Venture Fund X LLC).

The new development came after another report recently claimed that some money in the Rs 6,300 crore private equity investment announced by BYJU early this year has also not arrived.

In March, BYJU’S had announced to raise approximately Rs 6,300 crore (approximately $800 million) from Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and BlackRock. Byju Raveendranfounder and CEO, was also part of the funding round and made a $400 million personal investment.

Sumeru Ventures’ money is reported to have “not come in and questions are being raised about the fund’s antecedents”.

However, BYJU’S said most of the funds have been received and the rest are on track.

The company said “its fundraising efforts are on track and most of the $800 million has already been received.”

“The balance is also expected soon,” a company spokesperson had told IANS.

Meanwhile, the edtech giant recently said it has completed its nearly $1 billion acquisition of a provider of offline test prep services. aakash†

The company said in a statement last week that its payments to Aakash are “closed” and that “audited financial results will be announced in the next 10 days”.

BYJU’S has also been in the news for firing employees and disgruntled parents who complain about poor quality learning materials and sales pitches by agents.

Late last month, BYJU announced it would cut nearly 600 jobs — 300 employees on the Toppr learning platform and another 300 on the WhiteHat Jr. coding platform.

“To reduce the number of layoffs in our organization after multiple acquisitions, we had to let go of nearly one percent of our more than 50,000 employees,” said a company spokesperson.

BYJU’S also lost a case in a consumer court where a Bangladeshi man sued the company in a consumer court for providing his son and daughter with low-quality tablets and study materials that were promised Samsung tablets worth Rs 25,000.

Furthermore, the edtech major also backtracked from his promise to convert the tuition fees of Rs 99,000 into EMIs.

When the company failed to comply with its demand to cancel the subscription and refund it, he filed a case and won a refund of the fee of Rs 99,000 and compensation of Rs 30,000, according to reports.

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