India wants Byju’s to explain delay in filing audited financial statements, report says – TechCrunch

India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs has asked Byju’s to explain why it did not file its audited financial statements for the year ending March 2021, Bloomberg News reported Thursday.

Edtech giant Byju’s, which is India’s most valuable startup at a valuation of $22 billion, missed the deadline to file its audited results by 17 months.

The startup — backed by dozens of high-profile investors including Blackrock, Tiger Global, UBS, Prosus Ventures, Sequoia India and Lightspeed Venture Partners — said in early July that it would file results within 10 days. Since then, it has repeatedly missed its own deadline.

The probe by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs follows Indian lawmaker Karti Chidambaram, who called for an investigation into the firm’s finances for failing to submit its accounts.

Chidambaram, the Sivaganga Member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha, has written an open letter to the country’s fraud regulator, asking them to investigate the finances of Byju’s, which he said has yet to secure $250 million in capital since its last funding round presented in March and laid off hundreds of employees and, in parallel, seeks to acquire an American company valued at more than 2 billion dollars.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Byju’s has also been in the market to raise another round for more than four months, but has had little or no success, according to a source directly familiar with the matter.