The fake investment that connects Byju’s and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Sumeru Ventures, a curious Los Angeles-based fund, participated in a $800 million round in Byju’s. But the money hasn’t come in and questions are being raised about the fund’s antecedents.
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Editor's note: Skeletons are tumbling out of Byju’s closet thick and fast. The Morning Context has learnt that the $800 million (around Rs 6,300 crore) private equity investment the company announced in March has gone off track. “The money from Sumeru Ventures, one of the participants in the round, hasn’t landed,” says a person in the know. Things came to the point where one of the investors initiated a probe by corporate investigation and risk consulting firm Kroll, which found “serious discrepancies with Sumeru Ventures, which has derailed the entire investment”. This person adds that they can’t share the Kroll investigation report for fear of being identified. Byju’s, India’s largest edtech company, announced in March that it had raised $800 million from Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and BlackRock, at a valuation of $22 billion. The company said that CEO Byju Raveendran would lead the round with a personal investment of $400 million. We have written in detail about how Raveendran is stitching together the funds he promised and how he is scampering to raise any money he can. The company’s filings with …
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