The most valuable startup in India, Byju’s, announced that its revenue from operations for the fiscal year that ended in March 2021 has been readjusted to Rs 2,280 crore, even though the business suffered enormous losses of Rs 4,588 crore, up from just Rs 262 crore the previous year.
In-depth details about Losses in Byju’s annual profit & loss report that increased to Rs 4,588 crore:
This represents a substantial decrease of 48% from the anticipated revenue of around Rs 4,400 crore stated in the unaudited results of Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, the company in charge of the edtech company that has recently come under heavy scrutiny for its accounting procedures.
The $22 billion startup from Bengaluru has experienced a roughly 18-month delay in publishing its audited results due to concerns from Deloitte’s audit division on a number of contentious problems in the company’s accounting.
According to Deloitte, Byju’s streaming service revenues (the online courses it sells), which were previously completely recognised at contract initiation, have been modified to be recognized rateably throughout the life of the contract. Additionally, because these payments are in the nature of payments to consumers, the audit firm noted that the interest on loans made directly to customers but paid by Byju’s on their behalf has been reclassified from finance cost and balanced against revenues.
The online tutoring platform’s revenue has significantly decreased as a result of these two significant accounting adjustments, and there have also been significant losses. According to Raveendran, the company’s losses of Rs. 4,588 crores were split equally between Byju’s and Whitehat Jr., which it purchased in 2020. While “the revenue got pushed out, the future costs linked with the revenues did not get (pushed out), and also we closed most of the acquisitions in 2021 which added to the losses,” he pointed out.
The educator-turned-entrepreneur described the recent months as “difficult” as the business faced criticism for delaying the submission of its audited accounts.
The ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) contacted Byju last month and requested an explanation for why the financial reports for FY21 had not yet been presented.
“Although the audit was delayed, the story about fraud was false—there was no misreporting, as you claim. I’ve talked over the phone with a lot of investors, and nobody seems worried because they are only interested in the data for the upcoming fiscal years (FY22 and FY23), “said Raveendran.
Byju’s reported that Deloitte Haskins & Sells, its auditor, had given it an unqualified report for the fiscal year 2021, finding no errors in its financial statements.
The edtech business reported on Wednesday that it has earned Rs 10,000 crore in gross revenue for the fiscal year 2022. These results have not yet been audited, to be sure.
