Edtech firm Byju’s is likely to miss today’s deadline to pay the salaries of more than 20,000 employees for February, a Business Today report said.
The report said the company won’t be able to credit the salaries as funds raised via its rights issue remain stuck. This comes after CEO Byju Raveendran claimed that the company is trying to ensure that they pay the salaries by March 10.
On March 2, Mr Raveendran wrote an email to his employees, wherein he said, “We are striving to ensure that your salaries are paid by the 10th of March. We shall make these payments the moment we are permitted to do so as per law.”
In the email, while informing that Byju’s is unable to pay salaries, Mr Raveendran also lashed out at a group of investors for moving a resolution that locked away the company’s fund in a separate account.
He wrote, “….I regret to inform you that we will still be unable to process your salaries…..Unfortunately, a select few (4 out of our 150+ investors) have stooped to a heartless level, ensuring that we are unable to utilise the funds raised to pay your hard-earned salaries.”
Mr Raveendran added, “At their behest, the amount raised through the rights issue is currently locked in a separate account.”
He also revealed, “It is an agonizing reality that some of these investors have already reaped substantial profits – in fact, one of them has made a staggering eight times their initial investment in Byju’s. And yet, their actions convey a callous disregard for our lives and livelihoods.”
Going by the email, last month, the company faced challenges in crediting salaries “due to a lack of capital,” and now Byju’s is “experiencing a delay despite having funds.”
Notably, last month, the primary stakeholders of Byju’s decided to oust Mr. Raveendran from the position of CEO and remove him from the board of the company he founded in 2015. The edtech firm has experienced a significant downturn, with a notable decline of around 90 per cent over the past year.
