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Edtech firm BYJU’S is considering shutting down WhiteHat Jr as it seeks to reduce costs and eliminate the business division that has attracted significant criticism to the Bengaluru-headquartered company.

According to a report by TechCrunch, BYJU’S has been in talks in the recent weeks about closing down the coding platform. However, it has not reached the decision yet. BYJU’S acquired the coding edtech startup for $300 million in 2020.

BYJU’S eventually spent less than $235 million on the acquisition deal, the report noted.

YourStory could not independently verify the report. BYJU’S did not respond to the queries sent by YourStory at the time of publication.

At the time of these discussions, the edtech giant is drastically slashing costs. The company, which has reduced its spending on marketing and let go of thousands of staff, was spending around $14 million on its coding platform each month until recently, the report added.

Last June, WhiteHat Jr fired around 300 employees in a cost-cutting measure.

WhiteHat Jr has also been under fire for making false claims and using pushy tactics to court students. The coding platform received even more criticism when it sued several of its critics. Eventually, it retracted the lawsuit.

In November, speaking at TechSparks 2022, Byju Raveendran, Founder and CEO, BYJU’S, said, while the company is still figuring out the go-to-market strategy for WhiteHat Jr, its other major acquisitions have been profitable.

Recently, BYJU’S has come under scrutiny due to its questionable accounting procedures and substantial downsizing. Earlier this month, YourStory reported that BYJU’S axed over 900 more jobs across teams in a fresh round of layoffs.

The startup, which was last valued at $22 billion, reported a loss of Rs 4,564.38 crore in FY21, bigger than its FY20 loss, which stood at Rs 305.5 crore.