Over the past year, edtech startup Byju’s has been riddled with multiple problems. Now, the company faces a fresh setback. US-based non-profit organisation and educational website
Code.org
has sued Byju’s subsidiary
WhiteHat Jr
. The litigation against the company’s coding-for-kids business was filed in a California district court over payment dues. The court’s website claims that the lawsuit was filed by Code.org on December 1.
What is Code.org
Code.org is an education-related nonprofit organisation. This platform provides K-12 computer science curriculum in school districts in the US. According to the company’s website, its donors include
Microsoft
,
Amazon
and
, among others.
Why the non-profit is suing Whitehat Jr
In April 2022, Code.org and Byju’s Whitehat Jr entered into an agreement. As per this collaboration, the former agreed to licence the latter certain limited rights to use its platform and lesson content for WhiteHat’s online tutoring service.
For this contract, WhiteHat Jr agreed to pay Code.org licensing fees totaling $4 million to a four-year schedule. According to a report by TechCrunch, the US platform claims that WhiteHat Jr did not honour the payment schedule and continued to leverage its coding courseware.
As per the legal complaint, WhiteHat Jr paid its 2022 licensing fee. However, earlier this year, the company informed the nonprofit that it would be unable to make the remaining scheduled payments under the four-year deal.
Code.org’s lawyers have argued that the original contract clearly states that even in the event of termination, WhiteHat Jr would not be relieved of its obligation to pay all future licensing payments that are still owed. In this case, the amount is $3 million.
In 2020, Byju’s acquired WhiteHat Jr in an all-cash deal worth $300 million. This marked the edtech startup’s entry into the computer code learning segment with a focus on high school and college students. However Byju’s has been winding down the coding platform since 2022.
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