Byju’s is in the throes of a working capital crisis

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Editor's note: The wheels are slowly coming off Byju’s growth story. The Morning Context has learnt that India’s largest edtech company, which is valued at $22 billion, hasn’t paid several of its vendors for months. Some of the payments are due since March and there is trouble with their clearance. In the eight months to October 2022, cumulative dues to vendors have crossed Rs 90 crore. The Bengaluru-based company, for instance, owes Amazon Web Services more than Rs 26 crore, including GST, for its services. It also owes more than Rs 20 crore each to messaging platform Gupshup and the real-time engagement platform Agora. This is highly unusual. “Normally, vendors are paid within 30-60 days. In exceptional cases, it would take another 30 days,” says an industry expert, requesting anonymity. “This kind of delay is unheard of. Many of these are small vendors. Why won’t you pay them?”  “Payments are pending everywhere and an exhaustive list is impossible to make,” says a person in the know, asking not to be named. “Google and Facebook had even suspended the company’s accounts for a …