In the chronicles of Indian startup history, few figures inspire equal parts wonder, aspiration, and, in recent times, fear as Byju Raveendran and his creation, BYJU’S. From humble roots as a passionate educator to leading a worldwide educative juggernaut valued in multibillion dollars, Raveendran’s odyssey enthralled an entire country and international backers alike. He truly did create an empire on that promise — to change the nature of education, to make learning more engaging, more personalized, more available, and accessible to millions of children, to families. As 2025 looms, BYJU’s now faces an extraordinary tempest of fiscal calamity, governance issues, and existential crisis, igniting essential conversations around hyper-growth, corporate debt, and the boom-and-bust cycles of the ed-tech fantasy.
This is a tale of remarkable foresight colliding with exceptional adversity, a tale that reflects both the thrilling peaks and daunting valleys of India’s startup landscape.
The Early Genius Beyond Classroom Teacher to Education-Technology Innovator
Byju Raveendran’s rags-to-riches story is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend. Born in Azhikode, an even smaller village in the state of Kerala, to a father who was also a physics teacher and a mother who taught mathematics as well, education was in his DNA. Even with this engineering pedigree, it was his natural gift for demystifying opaque ideas that put him on a separate course altogether.
His father’s unexpected death left his family with mounting debts and little income, so after completing his engineering degree, Byju started his career as a service engineer. His real passion revealed itself when he found himself tutoring friends for India’s Common Admission Test (CAT) – the notoriously difficult entrance exam to gain admission into MBA programs across India. His teaching methodology was quite revolutionary. Rather than key memorization, Byju prioritized conceptual clarity, logical reasoning, and making the learning process intuitive and fun. His classes, originally taught to small, intimate groups, grew exponentially in popularity. Word-of-mouth took over, and the next thing he knew, he was teaching thousands of students in auditoriums in city after city, flying between them to do the sessions. He had famously cleared the CAT exam twice with a 100 percentile not to get admission to any MBA program, to validate his methodology.
It was this meteoric rise as a physical coach that led to one of the most important realizations of his career — his one-of-a-kind teaching style just wasn’t enough. This new vision of impacting the world, and the realization that he could do it by scaling his impact through technology, started to germinate. To reach learners wherever they are, he began to record his lessons on video so those who could not make it to his live sessions could still learn from them. It was this modest foundation that planted the seeds for what would be the revolutionary master plan for Mr.
Chapter 1, Founding BYJU’S: The Beginning of a Digital Edu-Mogul
In 2011, Byju Raveendran, along with his wife and former student, Divya Gokulnath, formally founded Think & Learn Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of BYJU’S. These lessons were provided live through the company’s first product offering — smart classrooms — for students preparing for competitive entrance exams such as CAT, JEE, and NEET. The underlying ethos was clear but revolutionary — deliver a learning experience that was fun, customized to the individual, and responsive to the learner. BYJU wanted to do more than replace the one-size-fits-all model of regular school with more content, delivering material tailored to every student’s individual pace and learning style.
At first, the problems loomed large. Getting Indian parents, who are used to a rigid teaching system, to believe in the effectiveness of online learning was a hard sell. Constructing a powerful technology infrastructure to produce and distribute high-quality, accessible, engaging video features to a wide range of audiences on different connection speeds and device types was yet another challenge. BYJU’s approach to producing high-quality, visually-rich, conceptually clear content in conjunction with Byju’s infectious teaching personality captured early adopters right out of the gate.
The real revolution started in 2015 when the BYJU Learning App was released. Designed to provide personalized learning paths, this free app with video lessons and interactive exercises for K-12 (as in, kindergarten through 12th grade) students shot to the top of the education app stores. It turned out to be an immediate success, rapidly gaining millions of downloads almost overnight. This digital, direct-to-consumer model lets BYJU’S avoid the slow-moving traditional centralized education system and rapidly connect with a massive student body throughout India. The app’s wild success confirmed the huge, unmet demand for dynamic, digital education.
The Hyper-Growth Phase: Acquisitions and Global Ambitions
The COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020, served as an irreplicable tailwind for BYJU’S. With schools closed around the world, online learning became less of a nice-to-have and more of a need-to-have overnight. In India, BYJU’S saw millions of new users join the platform, and as people shifted to paid subscriptions, BYJU’S had a spike in paid subscribers. This time of extreme expansion acted as rocket fuel for Byju Raveendran’s seemingly limitless aspirations for worldwide glory.
In the meantime, BYJU’S continued on its mammoth home state acquisition spree, spending billions of dollars acquiring other companies to grab market share, diversify its offerings, and vertically integrate. Major purchases made up by:
Aakash runs one of the largest networks of physical coaching centers for competitive exams, a $950 million acquisition that combined offline reach with online tech.
A digital, global upskilling platform for working professionals, further diversifying BYJU’S into the adult learning and higher education vertical.
How to get started? An immersive digital experience, Elevating Voices goes beyond programming to create a digital home for the stories shared with us in NFF’s original documentary (2021). A big move into the North American market by a booming digital read-aloud platform for children in the US
Osmo (2019): An award-winning educational game company, that enriches lives through the power of play and learning.
Tynker (2021) — A K-12 coding platform, riding the wave of increasing digital education and literacy.
WhiteHat Jr (2020): An online coding platform for kids, a controversial acquisition that at one point attracted criticism for its predatory sales practices.
These acquisitions quickly widened BYJU’S product portfolio from K-12 to test preparation, professional upskilling, and even coding, cementing its dominance in not only India but important international markets including the US. The resulting ed-tech boom sent the company’s valuation skyrocketing, peaking at a staggering $22 billion, making it India’s most valuable startup and a worldwide decacorn— a $10 billion, or more, startup. Then came the celebrity endorsements—including famous cultural icons like Beyoncé and Kamala Harris—and brand awareness for M-Pesa skyrocketed. Byju Raveendran’s vision was audacious, but simple: to create a complete, integrated, global learning ecosystem that served all types of learners—regardless of age, geography, or income level.
The Storm Gathers: Growing Challenges and Local Controversies
The post-pandemic reality was a harsh adjustment for BYJU’S. With the return to in-person classes, the once-booming need for online education came to a halt. That aggressive acquisition strategy, which was largely sustained by debt and high valuations, began to come undone. The firm soon found itself facing an acute funding squeeze as investor appetite turned and global interest rates increased.
At the same time, BYJU’S was under the harsh spotlight of regulatory scrutiny and public criticism. Concerns started to arise about its aggressive and allegedly deceptive sales tactics which often included upselling parents on expensive, high-interest loans for subscriptions. Refund policies were particularly criticized as conspicuously opaque and hard to make sense of.
The company’s resilience was pushed to the limit with its financial health, too. This was concerning especially since we saw delayed financial results for FY21 and FY22 that were a major red flag. This was further worsened by its auditor Deloitte resigning due to lack of timely access to its financial information, a decision that deeply shook the faith of investors. All this came to a head when not only the CEO, but several important board members resigned, making the case for poor governance.
Their once sky-high valuation came crashing down. Market skeptics remained Investors such as Prosus and BlackRock took multiple write-downs, negatively repricing their valuations of BYJU’S, a strong signal that the granted dollar was being spent bearish on BYJU’S with the backdrop of worsening financials. This resulted in a cascading effect, as it further increased the difficulty of raising new capital.
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The most noticeable result of these fiscal woes was the successful war on employees through scalebacks. BYJU’S had recently gone through three rounds of massive layoffs, each time laying off thousands of workers in departments ranging from sales to tech to curriculum development. This only added to the bad press and public firestorm criticism coming from the media.
Further complicating these issues were ugly legal fights. Early repayment was demanded by lenders of a $1.2 billion term loan B, sparking months of complicated legal battles in the US courts. On top of all this, there were stories about a trail of infighting with various stockholders. This confluence of financial, regulatory, and governance challenges made for a perfect storm, driving BYJU’S into an unprecedented crisis.
BYJU’S in 2025 — if it even makes it that far — will be sailing through very different, choppy waters.
Judging from my emails and all my karma points, as of mid-2025 BYJU’S is an ongoing disaster, fighting for one’s existence. The former ed-tech darling is now forever linked to the nightmare story of hyper-growth unanchored by thoughtful, sustainable practices. The company has been pursuing an aggressive, court-approved restructuring plan to moor the company’s debt burden and re-focus the company’s operations. This even includes efforts to sell off valuable assets such as Epic! Great Learning, to help it raise capital and double down on its much more lucrative Indian K-12 and test prep businesses.
These governance reforms have been halting and incomplete, including a bad-faith attempt to install new financial leadership. The moves are part of an effort to rebuild trust with investors and stakeholders. The road to recovery isn’t easy though, especially with continuing legal battles and a reputation still in tatters.
Though the challenges are monumental, the desire for quality online education in India is palpable. While the pandemic sped up digital adoption across the board, a hybrid learning model is here to stay as the world moves forward and continues to innovate. With BYJU’S admittedly deep content library and tech infrastructure, there are still valuable assets. Right now, priorities have to shift toward reaching profitability, becoming stable financially, and bringing back the confidence of its staff, cooperative partners, and customers.
Whether Byju Raveendran can hold onto the helm in this turbulent seas is the biggest question staring at India’s edtech captain as he continues to be called amid an unprecedented crisis storming at his firm. His own financial skin in the game, including putting his own home as collateral against the company’s loans further demonstrates his conviction. Though he has a remarkable administrative background, many have wondered whether he can crack the financial and governance nut that the city has grown and sharpened like a weapon.
A Legacy Marked by Pursuit and Peril
Education entrepreneur Byju Raveendran’s transformation from an impassioned educator to head of a multinational ed-tech behemoth is a truly astonishing tale. He democratized learning, bringing high-quality education within reach of millions and inspiring a generation of entrepreneurs to soar. His dream of accessible, appreciative, interactive learning left an indelible mark on the Indian education system.
Yet the course of its rapid, debt-fueled expansion and the controversies that followed have, as of late, left BYJU’S treading water at best. The ensuing drama around the company should be a cautionary tale for the whole startup universe about the dangers of hypergrowth, the necessity for proper governance, and the value of sustainable business models even in times of great opportunity.
As we move into 2025, BYJU’S future is still very much up in the air. Can Byju Raveendran find his way out of this tempest and get the ship back in its previously charted waters? Or will it instead turn into a tragic, cautionary tale of what occurs when ambition exceeds execution and governance? No matter what ultimate fate awaits it, the saga of Byju Raveendran and BYJU’S will always be written in history’s books as one of India’s great entrepreneurial tales, one of all-time big visions founded upon simultaneously enormous obstacles, found only in rapid expansion.
