Byju’s to lay off 2,500 employees, consolidate several units

Byju’s, the global edtech behemoth based out of India, announced that it is laying off 5% or 2,500 of its total workforce as it restructures to achieve overall profitability by March 2023.

Byju’s founder Byju Raveendran / Photo credit: Byju’s

The job cuts, which will be across the product, content, media, and technology teams, will be done in phases.

The SoftBank-backed company said the move stems from the consolidation of its various K-10 businesses, namely Toppr, Meritnation, TutorVista, Scholar, and HashLearn, into one unit. Only Aakash and Great Learning will continue to function as separate organizations.

“As a mature organization that takes its responsibility towards investors and stakeholders seriously, we aim to ensure sustainable growth alongside strong revenue growth. These measures will help us achieve profitability in the defined time frame of March 2023,” Mrinal Mohit, CEO of Byju’s India business, said in a statement.

This comes a month after Byju’s delayed financial year ended March 2021 revealed a slowdown in revenue and wider losses. There have also been several questions surrounding its US$22 billion valuation.

The company added that it plans to hire a total of 10,000 more teachers in the coming year, boosting its current headcount of 20,000 teachers.

Byju’s will slash its marketing budget in India and invest on brand awareness in overseas markets. It is also reworking on its sales model by creating multiple inside sales hubs across India, where sales associates can reach out to incoming leads virtually in order to reduce costs.

“None of these measures will have any impact on our revenue run rate,” claimed Mohit.

Reports in June claimed that Byju’s had terminated over 2,500 employees from its core team and subsidiary companies.

See also: The $22b question on Byju’s valuation