The ed-tech company in India is experiencing its most successful era to date. Byju’s, the biggest and most successful ed-tech startup in India after Unacademy and Vedantu, is having trouble surviving. Shah Rukh Khan serves as the brand ambassador for the ed-tech business, which has cut off over 2500 workers from sibling companies including Whitehat Jr. and Toppr. During the covid-induced lockout, WhiteHat Jr dominated the spotlight to make coding approachable to children.
The Byju Ravendrann-led company, according to MoneyControl, has let go of full-time and contract workers from Toppr, WhiteHat Jr., and its core team in the sales and marketing, operations, content, and design departments. On June 27 and June 29, the business let go of around 1500 workers from Toppr and WhiteHat Jr. Notably, over the past two years, Byju’s has bought both businesses. On June 29, emails were sent to the remaining 1000 workers informing them of the layoffs. The second round of layoffs involved workers from the company’s core operations departments, according to the people who spoke to the newspaper.
“Employees from the content and design team were the most affected ones. They have reduced content, solution-writing, and design teams drastically across group companies. Some of these teams have even been reduced to zero. Earlier, they were laying off employees from the companies they acquired so that their name doesn’t come directly, but now they have laid off employees from its core operations,” MoneyControl quoted a source as saying.
Toppr alone had to let go of close to 350 permanent employees, while another 300 employees were asked to submit their resignations and were told that if they fail to tender resignations, they will not get salaries for about 1-1.5 months. Additionally, 600 contractual employees were also asked to leave.
“Byju’s has completed the integration of Toppr and has absorbed almost 80 percent of its talented workforce into Byju’s ecosystem. As the next step, we are optimizing teams to recalibrate business priorities and accelerate our long-term growth,” a Byju’s spokesperson told the publication.
However, the company denied terminating 2500 workers. Even the MoneyControl report was fabricated by them. According to a Byju’s representative, the firm is maximizing the teams from its group companies in order to realign its business goals and speed up long-term growth. Less than 500 personnel from the various Byju’s Group firms are involved in this entire endeavor, the Byju’s spokeswoman continued.