Byju’s, India’s leading ed-tech startup, on Thursday said “less than 500 employees” have been laid off across its group companies as part of an optimisation exercise, countering speculation of numbers in excess of 2,500, but confirming a trend of layoffs across ed-tech focussed startups in the country.

“To recalibrate our business priorities and accelerate our long-term growth, we are optimising our teams. This entire exercise involves less than 500 employees from across Byju’s group firms,” a spokesperson of Byju’s said in an emailed response on Thursday. The company, however, did not specify a breakup of the number of people who have been asked to leave across each company.

Sources said the layoffs in the group have been across departments, including sales and marketing, operations, content and design teams. The recalibration could also include a rebranding exercise amid market speculation of a pending public offer of the most valued ed-tech startup in the country.

Group company Whitehat Jr, which was acquired by Byju’s in 2020 for an estimated $300 million, has also laid off employees citing similar reasons. “WhiteHat Jr is focused on providing quality education to young students while continuing to build a strong business. To realign with our business priorities, we are optimising our team to accelerate results and best position the business for long-term growth.

WhiteHat Jr continues to put students first and invest in building a high-quality teacher’s network,” a company spokesperson said. Group company Toppr has also seen layoffs with a similar plan to optimise operations. The high-flying unicorn, valued at $22 billion and backed by prominent investors such as Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Naspers, General Atlantic, Tencent, Sequoia Capital, IFC, Tiger Global and Qatar Investment Authority, has been on a massive expansion in recent years through acquisitions, including setting up an offline presence.

The most prominent was the acquisition of Aakash Educational Services last year in a deal estimated at nearly $1 billion. According to Crunchbase, Byju’s has so far made 16 acquisitions with many of them in the last couple of years during the Covid pandemic when learning through electronic means was in demand. However, once the lockdown was lifted and educational institutions went back to offline classes, the demand for online education waned. This led edtech startups to reorganise their business plans to include scaling up offline presence. Several ed-tech startups, including SoftBank-backed Unacademy and Vedantu, have laid off employees in the past to optimise costs.