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Byju’s: The Rise and Fall of India’s Once-Most-Valued Startup

Byju’s became one of India’s most valuable startups before post-pandemic challenges, expansion costs, delayed accounts, investor conflict and legal disputes reshaped its future.
From TheFinanceBase Team6 min to read
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Byju’s grew from an online learning business into a global education brand during a period of surging demand for remote instruction. Its reported $22 billion peak valuation in 2022 was followed by post-lockdown pressure, costly expansion, delayed financial reporting, investor disputes and insolvency proceedings. No independent current valuation or final resolution of the parent company’s insolvency is established in the reporting available as of October 8, 2026.

What Byju’s was—and what its valuation meant

Byju’s is the brand associated with Think & Learn Private Limited, an Indian company that the Supreme Court described as “a company engaged in the business of providing online educational services.” The brand’s expansion combined digital learning products with offline education centres and a growing portfolio of education businesses.

Indian Express and Business Standard reported that Byju’s reached a peak private-company valuation of $22 billion in 2022. That figure was an investor-market valuation, not a measure of revenue, cash available to the company, or a guaranteed sale price. It does not establish what Think & Learn or the wider group is worth now.

How the company scaled so quickly

Remote learning and brand reach

The COVID-era shift to remote learning helped accelerate demand for online education. Byju’s paired its digital offering with physical tuition centres and used prominent sponsorships to raise its profile. Indian Express reported that the company sponsored the Indian cricket team’s jerseys from 2019 to 2023 and was an official FIFA World Cup sponsor in Qatar in 2022.

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In 2022, the company said it had more than 150 million registered learners globally, according to Indian Express. That was a company-reported registration figure; it should not be read as a verified count of active learners or paying customers. The same outlet reported company plans to grow its Tuition Centres from more than 250 to 500, another scale ambition rather than evidence that the expansion was completed.

Acquisitions and expansion

Acquisitions helped Byju’s broaden its reach beyond its original online-learning business. The group bought Aakash Educational Services in 2021 in a deal reported at $940 million. Indian Express reported that the transaction later encountered a dispute over transfer of the stake. It also reported that six acquisitions made between 2017 and 2021 did not generate the cash the company had anticipated.

These moves, along with marketing and international growth, increased the company’s scale and visibility. But scale alone does not show that a business can retain customers or earn enough from them to cover the cost of acquiring and serving them. The later financial pressures suggest that expansion did not translate into a durable financial position on the terms the company had expected.

Why Byju’s came under pressure

The post-lockdown shift

As restrictions eased and in-person classes resumed, the surge in demand for remote learning did not continue at the same pace. Indian Express reported that Byju’s growth was hit as offline classes returned. In an October 2024 interview with Business Standard, founder Byju Raveendran acknowledged a mistaken growth assumption: “We did make a mistake of overestimating the growth in the initial phase of Covid.”

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Expansion costs and reported losses

Indian Express reported that Think & Learn recorded a loss of ₹8,245 crore for the financial year ended March 2022, compared with ₹4,564 crore for the year before. The outlet linked the pressure on the bottom line to factors including aggressive marketing, expensive acquisitions and financial mismanagement. Those explanations help describe the pressures reported at the time; they do not, on their own, establish the relative contribution of each factor.

Reporting delays and investor conflict

The company’s FY2022 results were released after an 18-month delay, according to Indian Express. Deloitte Haskins & Sells resigned as auditor in June 2023; the outlet reported that the firm cited its inability to finalise reports for FY2021 and FY2022. Indian Express also reported that FY2023 results had not been declared as of its March 2024 explainer, so that statement should not be taken as an update on later filings.

Reporting problems became part of a wider governance dispute. Investors challenged management over matters including a rights issue and the handling of receivables and commissions. These were reported disputes and allegations, not a finding that every criticism was proven. Delayed accounts and conflicts with investors made it harder for outsiders to assess the company’s finances while its commercial position was weakening.

Two different legal conflicts: BCCI dues and the US loan

The parent company’s insolvency case

Think & Learn’s insolvency proceedings began with a dispute over sponsorship payments owed to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The Supreme Court judgment records a 2019 team-sponsor agreement between BCCI and Think & Learn. On July 16, 2024, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted BCCI’s petition against Think & Learn and initiated the corporate insolvency resolution process.

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TechCrunch reported that BCCI’s petition sought nearly $19 million; Indian Express reported the default as ₹158.90 crore. Those are amounts described by the respective outlets in their accounts of the claim, not figures that should be conflated with the company’s separate US borrowing.

In October 2024, the Supreme Court considered an appellate tribunal’s decision that had approved a settlement and set aside the NCLT’s admission order. The Court addressed the rules for withdrawing an admitted insolvency process and the appellate tribunal’s authority. Later proceedings concerned the creditor committee overseeing the parent-company process. Business Standard reported that the Supreme Court declined in May 2026 to interfere with an order restoring the original Committee of Creditors and allowing an inquiry into the resolution professional’s conduct to proceed. This was a procedural development, not a final decision on the company’s future.

The Byju’s Alpha loan and disputed transfer

A separate dispute concerns a loan taken by Byju’s Alpha Inc., a wholly owned US subsidiary. The November 24, 2021 credit and guarantee agreement provided a facility of approximately $1.2 billion, with Think & Learn acting as guarantor. The Supreme Court judgment recounts lenders’ allegation that $533 million was transferred to a hedge fund and notes that a Delaware court issued a preliminary injunction in March 2024 restricting movement of the funds.

The alleged transfer must remain an allegation: the judgment records the lenders’ claim and the related injunction, not a final finding that Byju’s misappropriated the money. Raveendran denied intentional siphoning in comments reported by Business Standard. This cross-border lending dispute is distinct from the BCCI sponsorship claim that triggered the parent company’s insolvency process.

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What is Byju’s worth now, and what remains unresolved?

There is no independently established current valuation for Think & Learn in the sources cited here. In October 2024, Raveendran said the parent entity’s value had fallen to zero. That is the founder’s assessment, not an independent valuation or a confirmed sale price. A peak private-market valuation and a founder’s later statement are different kinds of claims and neither provides a verified present-day worth.

The parent-company insolvency process also remains a procedural matter, not proof that the business has been liquidated or that all claims have been settled. The Supreme Court’s May 2026 action concerned the creditor committee and an inquiry, not a final resolution. Separately, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) lists an NCLT admission order dated October 15, 2025, for Byju’s K3 Education Private Limited. That is a different legal entity and should not be mistaken for an update on Think & Learn’s case.

The available reporting does not establish a complete audited financial history from the company’s founding through the present, its current enrolment or revenue, or an authoritative current valuation. Byju’s rise is explained by the combination of pandemic-era demand, brand-building and expansion; its decline is better understood as interacting market, financial, reporting, governance and legal pressures than as the result of one event alone.

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