Mumbai: As his company undergoes corporate insolvency proceedings, Byju Raveendran, the founder of what was once India’s most valued startup, has joined the social media platform ‘X’, stating that he wants to talk about the past 20 years and plans to relaunch his company by tapping into the pool of former employees of his firm.
Other than the occasional letter to his employees, Raveendran, the founder of Think & Learn Private Limited, popularly known as Byju’s, had, by and large, stayed silent until this month, despite his company’s health continuing to deteriorate through most of 2023 and 2024 amid his widening differences with a section of its investors. Amid the chaos, there were reports of the founder escaping to Dubai with his family, with Raveendran later saying he had not run away but was in Dubai for his dad’s medical treatment.
Earlier this month, Raveendran broke his silence in a LinkedIn post, alleging “criminal collusion” between a restructuring partner at EY India, GLAS Trust, and the court-appointed interim resolution professional.
On Friday, he joined ‘X’ with the verified handle, ‘ByjuofBYJUS’. “Nothing is ever as good as it seems, nor as bad as they make you believe. The truth usually lies somewhere in between. So I’m here to talk about the last 20 years: the good 17, the bad 2 & the ugly 1. No filters. Only facts,” Raveendran posted.
In his subsequent posts on Saturday and Sunday, Byju spoke about how he wants to relaunch his company.
Company relaunch ‘sooner than expected’
In his posts on ‘X’, Raveendran said he planned to relaunch Think & Learn by hiring staff from the pool of the company’s former employees and that it could be “sooner than expected”.
“Byjus was built by these 2 lakh freshers with zero experience, exceptional talent and infinite energy. They went on to become productive members of our great economy. Some became entrepreneurs and created jobs,” Raveendran said in his post.
Think & Learn, once India’s hottest ed-tech startup valued at $22 billion in 2022, has fast fallen from grace, facing a debt, unable to pay its employees their salaries on time, battling allegations of mismanagement from a set of its investors, and embroiled in insolvency proceedings.
Raveendran’s net worth peaked at $3.6 billion in 2022 and stood at $2.1 billion in 2023. According to the Forbes Billionaire Index 2024, it has dropped to zero now due to financial losses and a valuation markdown of Byju’s.
Last month, a US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware issued a damning summary judgment against his brother Riju Raveendran, the hedge fund Camshaft Capital Fund, its affiliates, and parent firm Think & Learn.
The order held the four parties responsible for defrauding lenders of the Think & Learn US subsidiary, Byju’s Alpha, by executing an unlawful scheme and allegedly transferring $533 million, as part of the term loan extended to Camshaft, the hedge fund founded by William Morton. Camshaft allegedly moved the funds to an offshore trust.
As Raveendran’s company struggled, there were reports of several layoff rounds, pay cuts, delayed salary payments, etc.
In his posts, however, Raveendran emphasised that he was instrumental in kickstarting the careers of several freshers with no prior work experience.
He said that over nine years, his company hired 2,15,000 fresh graduates, each with a minimum annual salary of Rs 6 lakh and that giving youngsters their first career opportunity has been one of his “life’s greatest honours”.
On his hopes for a relaunch, he added, “My hyper-optimism may seem crazy to some. But let’s not forget that you have to be odd to be number one.”
In his last post on Sunday, he uploaded a picture from his younger days and said, “Broke, not broken. We will rise again.”
Broke, not Broken. We will rise again. pic.twitter.com/dAekepwCtf
— Byju Raveendran (@ByjuofBYJUS) March 30, 2025
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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