According to a Tech Crunch story citing company disclosures, asset manager BlackRock has slashed its valuation of Indian ed-tech unicorn Byju's by about 95 percent, from $22 billion to $1 billion. Byju's was India's most valuable start-up, valued at $22 billion.

The downgrade comes as no surprise. Byju's shares were valued at roughly $209.6 per share in October 2023, a considerable decrease from the peak of $4,660 in 2022. The corporation owns less than 1% of Byju.

According to the study, it makes repeated disclosures throughout the year without explaining why. Blackrock and Byju's did not respond to requests for comment.

While not the first, it is the most significant valuation adjustment that the beleaguered ed-tech start-up has experienced. Prosus, which owns 9% of the company, valued the unicorn at'sub $3 billion' in 2023.

Reversed Fortune

This valuation reduction signals a remarkable turn of events for Byju's, which was formerly regarded as the poster child of the Indian start-up scene. Despite spending more than $2.5 billion on acquisitions globally in 2021 and 2022, Byju's, which was previously valued at $50 billion, is now suffering financial difficulties.

The company, which was planning to go public in early 2022 through a SPAC transaction with a potential valuation of up to $40 billion, had to postpone its IPO owing to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of that year. Later, as market conditions worsened, so did Byju's commercial prospects, and investors began to put pressure on the company to address outstanding difficulties.

Byju's is currently facing a number of obstacles, including difficulties in generating financing, making payroll responsibilities, and managing a billion-dollar debt. Last month, the business said that it had missed its revenue forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2022.

Ajay Goel, CFO of Byju, also departed the company in less than seven months, returning to Vedanta in late October. This comes after the exits of auditor Deloitte and three key board members in June. Despite numerous attempts, Prosus openly criticised the Bengaluru-based business in July for insufficient evolution and disdain for investor recommendations.