Founder Byju Raveendran, of the beleaguered edtech company Byju's, said on Thursday afternoon that he made mistakes, mistimed the market, overestimated growth potential and his startup, once valued at $22 billion, is now worth "zero".

Speaking to a group of journalists, Raveendran said that the aggressive acquisition of more than two dozen startups that was supposed to expand the company into new markets proved fatal when financing dried up in 2022. Byju's was planning to go public in early 2022 with several investment bankers giving the firm valuation as high as $50 billion, reported earlier by TechCrunch.

He claims most of his over 100 investors encouraged him to aggressively expand the business into as many as 40 markets, but he noted that the same investors ran cold when global markets started plummeting due to the invasion of Russia in Ukraine, with the venture capital market plummeting downward.

Several of my investors ran away, said Raveendran, also emphasizing that the exit of three of its key backers — Prosus Ventures, Peak XV, and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — from the company's board last year made it impossible for the startup to raise additional funds.

Representatives of the above-mentioned three firms as well as auditor Deloitte left the startup's board last year, citing governance issues.

The company has since gone into bankruptcy, and Raveendran, who no longer owns the firm said: "It's worth zero. What valuation are you talking about? It's worth zero.

Once India's most valuable startup, Byju's boasts backers such as BlackRock, UBS, Lightspeed, QIA, Bond, Silver Lake, Sofina, Verlinvest, Tencent, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, General Atlantic, Tiger Global, Owl Ventures, and World Bank's IFC. The startup has raised over $5 billion so far.

He remains positive about his startup's revival. "I have nothing to lose. I came from a small village. I invested everything I had in the startup," said Raveendran.