India’s corporate affairs ministry has asked Bijus to explain why it did not submit audited financial documents by March 2021, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.
Edtech giant Baijus, an Indian startup valued at $22 billion, has missed the deadline to file its audit results by 17 months.
The startup — backed by several investors including BlackRock, Tiger Global, UBS, Process Ventures, Sequoia India and Lightspeed Venture Partners — said in early July that it would present its results in 10 days. Since then he has repeatedly missed his own deadlines.
Indian lawyer Karti Chidambaram has called for an inquiry into the company’s finances after the Corporate Affairs Ministry’s inquiry failed to provide the statement.
Chidambaram, a Sivaganga MP in the Lok Sabha, has written an open letter to the country’s fraud watchdog, demanding an inquiry into Baijun’s finances, which he says has not received $250 million in capital from the latest funding round. The round was announced in March and has laid off hundreds of workers as it prepares to acquire the US company for more than $2 billion.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Byju’s has been in the market to raise a new round for more than four months but has had no success, said a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
