Byju’s, India’s largest edtech startup, plans to fire as many as 4,000 employees in the latest round of layoffs, according to people familiar with the development. The move comes within days of the appointment of Arjun Mohan as the company’s new chief executive officer for India.
The affected workforce will include senior executives, which will reduce the firm’s high cost of senior management-related expenses.
“This is primarily a combination of employees failing performance-improvement plans as well as contract staff being let go,” a person briefed on the details said.
Mohan met with some of the senior staff on Tuesday and communicated that some of them and their teams will be impacted, though no one has been formally fired yet. The process is likely to start only later this week or early next week. “There is a cash flow issue. This will help resolve it by the end of October,” the person cited above said.
Byju’s is also reducing overlaps between its online and offline staff and its staff in its regional sales offices. “From 19 regional offices, the company will now have offices only at four-five locations,” the person cited above added.
The firm named Mohan as the new India chief on 20 September. Mohan, a former upGrad executive who had previously worked at Byju’s, will be responsible for over 75% of the company’s revenues. He was brought in a month ago, but has been working with Byju’s in an informal capacity for a while.
“We are in the final stages of a business restructuring exercise to simplify operating structures, reduce cost base and better cash flow management. Byju’s new India CEO, Arjun Mohan, will be completing this process in the next few weeks and will steer a revamped and sustainable operation ahead,” a Byju’s spokesperson said in a statement. Parent company Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd, excluding the subsidiaries, had over 19,000 employees, including contract staff, at the end of August. This is likely to be reduced to 15,000 post-layoffs.
