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The founder of India’s most valued startup Byju Raveendran has apologised to employees who are to be laid off as a part of the company’s cost cutting measures. 

“I am truly sorry to those who will have to leave BYJU’S. You are not just a name to me. You are not a number. You are not just five percent of my company. You are five percent of me,” Byju said in an email. 

In the email, Byju also said that the edtech decacorn will ensure that newly created relevant roles are made available to the said employees, and that rehiring them would be prioritised.

“Bringing you back by putting our company on a sustainable growth path will now be the number 1 priority for me. I have already instructed our HR leaders to make all the newly created relevant roles available to you on an ongoing basis,” the email sent on October 31 read. 

In the last few months, BYJU’S has been under the scanner for its accounting practices, and mass layoffs. 

Earlier this month, the edtech company said it will be laying off 2,500 employees, which makes for about 5% of its workforce, across product, content, media, and technology teams in a cost-cutting initiative as the company’s losses widened.  

“This is the year when many adverse macroeconomic factors changed the business landscape. These have compelled tech companies around the world to focus on sustainability and capital-efficient growth. BYJU’S is no exception to this trend. Having expanded exponentially in the past four years, it is now time for us to grow sustainably,” Byju said in the email.

“We are working hard towards achieving profitability at the group level in this financial year itself. Our business has substantial economies of scale and unit economics, which we believe we can leverage to achieve this mandate. However, our rapid organic and inorganic growth has created some inefficiencies, redundancies and duplication within our organisation, that we need to rationalise to realise this,” the email added.

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BYJU’S, which was last valued at $22 billion, reported widened losses of Rs 4,564.38 crore in FY21, 14X more than the loss reported in FY20 which stood at Rs 305.5 crore.  

Earlier this week, news reports said that BYJU’S raised an unsecured loan of Rs 300 crore ($36.45 million) from its wholly-owned subsidiary Aakash Educational Services.

The startup also raised $250 million in a fresh funding round from its existing investors, including QIA (Qatar Investment Authority) this month.