Introduction
India’s startup ecosystem has witnessed many dramatic rises and falls, but nothing quite compares to what has unfolded with Byju’s. Once celebrated as the crown jewel of Indian edtech — a company that reached a staggering $22 billion valuation and claimed over 150 million registered students — Byju’s news today reads more like a cautionary tale than a success story. From courtroom battles in Delaware to insolvency hearings in Bengaluru, the journey of Think and Learn Private Limited, the parent company of Byju’s, has gripped investors, students, educators, and policymakers across the globe.
This in-depth article covers everything you need to know about the latest Byju’s news, including the ongoing insolvency resolution process, the dramatic US court judgment reversal, the bidding war for Byju’s valuable assets, and what the future might look like for the millions of students and employees caught in the middle.
The Rise That Made Byju’s a Household Name
Before diving into the current Byju’s news, it helps to understand just how big this company once was. Founded in 2011 by Byju Raveendran and Divya Gokulnath, Byju’s started as a humble tutoring service in Bengaluru. Raveendran, a mathematics teacher with an extraordinary ability to explain complex concepts, first gained fame through classroom sessions that students traveled from across India to attend. The company formalized this approach into an app-based learning platform, launching the Byju’s Learning App in August 2015.
Growth was explosive. By 2018, Byju’s had become India’s first edtech unicorn. By 2022, its valuation had climbed to $22 billion, making it the most valuable edtech startup in the world. Backed by marquee investors including Tiger Global, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Prosus, General Atlantic, and Sequoia Capital India (Peak XV), the company seemed unstoppable. It signed football icon Lionel Messi as a global brand ambassador and became an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022.
The pandemic accelerated everything. With schools shut across the world, Byju’s found itself at the center of a global shift toward online learning. It went on an acquisition spree, snapping up over 15 companies in rapid succession. These included Aakash Educational Services for $950 million, Great Learning for $600 million, WhiteHat Jr. for $300 million, Epic (a US children’s reading platform) for $500 million, and Tynker (a US coding platform) for approximately $200 million. The ambition was breathtaking. The execution, as Byju’s news would later reveal, was deeply flawed.
How the Cracks Appeared: Financial Trouble and Governance Failures
The warning signs in Byju’s news began surfacing around 2022. India’s Ministry of Corporate Affairs sent a letter to the company asking it to explain why it had not filed audited financials for the year ending March 2021. Byju’s cited the difficulty of consolidating accounts across its numerous acquisitions, but the explanation did little to calm investor nerves.
What followed was a cascade of governance concerns. Auditors flagged delayed filings and opaque revenue recognition practices. Mounting losses across acquired subsidiaries came to light. Deloitte, the company’s auditor, resigned in 2023. Three independent board members also stepped down. Employees began reporting delayed salaries. The company vacated a 400,000 square foot office space in Bengaluru to cut costs.
In 2023, Byju’s took out a $1.2 billion term loan from US-based lenders, administered through GLAS Trust Company LLC. That loan would become the centerpiece of much of the subsequent Byju’s news, as a dispute over $533 million in loan proceeds alleged to have been misappropriated became the subject of legal action in the United States.
Meanwhile, in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Bengaluru, seeking initiation of insolvency proceedings over unpaid dues of ₹158 crore related to a sponsorship agreement. This set off a chain of legal events that would ultimately result in Byju’s parent company being placed under formal insolvency proceedings in July 2024.
Byju’s Insolvency: The Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP)
The most consequential development in recent Byju’s news is the company’s ongoing Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process, or CIRP. On July 16, 2024, the NCLT Bengaluru Bench formally admitted the insolvency petition against Think and Learn Private Limited, appointing EY partner Shailendra Ajmera as the Resolution Professional (RP).
What does this mean in practice? Under India’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the RP takes over day-to-day oversight of the company and works to either revive it through a resolution plan or liquidate its assets to repay creditors. A Committee of Creditors (CoC) is formed, and any resolution plan must be approved by this committee.
The CoC in Byju’s case is dominated by GLAS Trust, which reportedly holds over 90 percent of the voting share in the committee. This gives US-based lenders enormous power over the fate of India’s once-prized edtech company. The RP has invited expressions of interest from potential buyers, and the asset sale process is now well underway.
According to Byju’s news from early 2026, the list of assets available under the insolvency process includes the investment in Aakash Educational Services, the BYJU’S Learning App, the brand name and trademarks, proprietary course content, WhiteHat Jr., Toppr, Great Learning, GeoGebra, and other digital platforms. Bidders have the flexibility to acquire the whole company or select specific assets.
Notably, Byju’s Android app was delisted from the Google Play Store in May 2025 due to unpaid Amazon Web Services bills, underscoring just how severe the operational deterioration had become. The company that once claimed 150 million registered students had effectively ceased meaningful operations.
The Bidding War: Who Wants Byju’s Assets?
Despite the company’s collapse, some of its underlying assets remain genuinely valuable. This has sparked a competitive bidding process that has generated significant Byju’s news in recent months.
Two major players have formally entered the race. The first is UpGrad, the edtech company led by Ronnie Screwvala. UpGrad submitted an Expression of Interest (EoI) and is studying the entire set of assets under Think and Learn. According to reports, Screwvala is particularly interested in the K-12 business, Aakash Educational Services, and Great Learning, as acquiring these assets would strengthen UpGrad’s position across the full spectrum of India’s education market — from school-age learners to working professionals seeking upskilling.
The second major bidder is Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG), led by billionaire Ranjan Pai. Manipal is already the largest shareholder in Aakash Educational Services, having acquired majority control in 2024. For Manipal, the primary interest lies in consolidating its ownership of Aakash, which is widely considered the most valuable single asset in Byju’s portfolio. Aakash is a well-established offline coaching institute chain for medical and engineering entrance exams, catering to approximately 3.7 lakh students and employing around 10,000 staff members.
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the CoC will ultimately decide which resolution plan is accepted, with creditor recovery being the paramount consideration. As one financial observer aptly noted, the process is less about the BYJU’S brand — which has suffered irreparable reputational damage — and more about the pieces that still hold intrinsic value. Aakash and Great Learning remain high-quality educational assets that savvy buyers are eager to acquire at distressed prices.
The fire-sale of US assets offers a stark preview of what happens when edtech valuations collapse. Tynker, acquired by Byju’s for $200 million in 2021, was sold for just $2.2 million to CodeHS. Epic, the children’s reading platform purchased for $500 million, was offloaded to China’s TAL Education Group for $95 million. These numbers illustrate the brutal arithmetic of distressed asset sales.
The US Court Drama: $1 Billion Judgment and Its Reversal
Perhaps no strand of Byju’s news has generated more international attention than the legal proceedings in a Delaware Bankruptcy Court. At the heart of the dispute is the allegation that Byju Raveendran, along with his wife Divya Gokulnath and former executive Anita Kishore, orchestrated a scheme to divert $533 million in loan proceeds that had been transferred to Byju’s US entity, BYJU’S Alpha, in 2022.
US lenders led by GLAS Trust filed a lawsuit in April 2024 accusing the trio of misappropriating these funds. Raveendran denied all wrongdoing, calling the allegations false and misleading. He argued that the funds were invested back into Think and Learn in compliance with Indian law and that Raveendran and entities controlled by him had invested in excess of $475 million by purchasing shares in the parent company during the same period.
The case took a dramatic turn in November 2025, when the Delaware Bankruptcy Court issued a default judgment against Raveendran for over $1.07 billion, citing repeated non-compliance with court discovery orders. The judge found that Raveendran had ignored court directions, provided evasive and incomplete responses, skipped hearings, missed extended deadlines, and left a prior contempt order imposing $10,000 in daily fines unpaid.
However, this was not the end of the story. In December 2025, the court reversed the $1 billion judgment following fresh submissions from Raveendran’s legal team. The court agreed that damages had never actually been properly assessed or awarded, and ordered a new damages proceeding phase to commence in early January 2026. This is a critical distinction: the reversal did not mean Raveendran was found innocent, but rather that the quantification of any liability still needed to be formally determined.
Raveendran’s litigation advisor Michael McNutt stated that the founder had not been found liable to pay a single dollar to GLAS Trust and vowed to present evidence demonstrating that the plaintiffs not only suffered no damage but had themselves intentionally misled the court. The legal team also announced plans to file a $2.5 billion lawsuit against GLAS Trust and related parties.
This ongoing legal battle continues to generate fresh Byju’s news and remains unresolved as of April 2026.
The Aakash Standoff: A Subsidiary Fighting for Survival
One of the most intriguing subplots in recent Byju’s news involves Aakash Educational Services and its efforts to raise funds independently of its embattled parent company. Since Think and Learn entered insolvency, Aakash has sought to distance itself from the BYJU’S crisis and ensure its own operational continuity.
Aakash proposed a ₹240 crore rights issue to raise fresh capital. However, this proposal became the subject of fierce legal contestation. GLAS Trust and the Resolution Professional initially attempted to block the rights issue, arguing that it would dilute Think and Learn’s shareholding and reduce the value available to creditors. The NCLAT Chennai Bench, however, dismissed their plea, making a pointed observation that the IBC cannot be used to “stifle a solvent subsidiary’s operations.”
“The spirit of the IBC is best served when companies in which a corporate debtor has shareholding are allowed to prosper,” the NCLAT bench ruled. The Supreme Court subsequently declined to interfere with the rights issue, clearing the path for Aakash to proceed with its capital-raising plans.
In February 2026, the Supreme Court recorded an undertaking by Aakash that Think and Learn’s 25.75 percent stake would remain protected until the NCLAT decided pending matters. This provided temporary assurance to all parties while the dispute over the second tranche of the rights issue continued to wind through the courts.
The Aakash saga perfectly encapsulates the complexity of Byju’s news: a profitable, operationally sound subsidiary fighting to survive while its insolvent parent company’s creditors and the courts debate control over its shares.
The Human Cost: Students, Employees, and the EdTech Dream
Amid all the courtroom battles and financial restructuring that dominate Byju’s news, it is easy to lose sight of the human dimension of this crisis. The collapse of Byju’s has impacted millions of people in tangible ways.
Approximately 85,000 jobs were lost as the company unraveled, a figure cited in statements by Raveendran’s own legal team. Thousands of employees went months without receiving salaries. The layoffs were reportedly handled poorly, with reports of workers being let go over phone calls without proper notice periods or performance improvement plans.
For students, the consequences were equally severe. Families who had paid significant sums for Byju’s learning programs found themselves without access to the services they had purchased. Parents in smaller towns and cities, many of whom had stretched their finances to give their children access to quality education, were left without recourse when the company ceased operations or drastically reduced service quality.
At its peak, Byju’s genuinely democratized access to quality educational content, bringing personalized learning to students in non-metro and rural cities across India. By 2019, 60 percent of Byju’s students were from non-metropolitan areas, a remarkable achievement. The company’s collapse represents not just a financial failure but the unraveling of an educational access story that had real impact for millions of families.
Lessons From Byju’s News: What Went Wrong?
The story that emerges from years of Byju’s news offers several important lessons for India’s startup ecosystem and the global edtech sector.
The first lesson is about the dangers of growth at any cost. Byju’s expansion was fueled by an almost reckless acquisition strategy. Buying more than 15 companies in just a few years, often at inflated pandemic-era valuations, created an unmanageable operational and financial burden. The integration of diverse businesses — from offline coaching centers to US digital reading platforms — proved far more complex than Raveendran and his team anticipated.
The second lesson concerns financial transparency and governance. Byju’s delayed financial filings, opaque revenue recognition practices, and the resignation of auditors all point to a governance culture that prioritized growth narratives over accountability. Early and credible disclosure of financial difficulties might have allowed for a more orderly restructuring rather than the chaotic collapse that eventually unfolded.
The third lesson involves the post-pandemic reality of edtech. The sector was significantly boosted by pandemic-era tailwinds that proved unsustainable. As schools reopened, demand for online learning dropped sharply, and Byju’s had built its entire financial model on the assumption that digital education adoption would continue accelerating indefinitely.
Finally, the Byju’s news saga highlights the risks of heavily leveraged growth. The $1.2 billion term loan from US lenders, which sits at the center of multiple legal disputes, was an aggressive bet that things would continue going well. When they did not, it became a catastrophic liability.
What Comes Next: The Future After Byju’s News Today
As of April 2026, the path forward for Byju’s depends on several intersecting developments. The insolvency resolution process is ongoing, with the CoC evaluating resolution plans from potential bidders including UpGrad and Manipal Group. The court-supervised sale process will determine which assets survive in some form and which are liquidated.
The US damages proceedings, which were ordered to begin in January 2026, will eventually determine whether Byju Raveendran faces any personal financial liability for the disputed $533 million. Raveendran has vowed to fight vigorously, presenting evidence he claims will vindicate him completely.
For Aakash Educational Services, the outlook is relatively bright. It serves nearly 3.7 lakh students, employs around 10,000 people, and remains operationally strong. Whether it ultimately comes under the full ownership of Manipal Group or another buyer, Aakash is likely to survive the Byju’s collapse and potentially thrive under more stable management.
The broader Indian edtech sector is also recalibrating. Companies like upGrad, Simplilearn, and BrightCHAMPS have been expanding steadily across Southeast Asia and West Asia, adopting more sustainable growth models that prioritize profitability over aggressive scale. The Byju’s story has served as a powerful cautionary tale that has sobered the sector’s ambitions without entirely dimming its potential.
Final Thoughts: Byju’s News and Its Enduring Significance
The Byju’s story is one of the most significant corporate sagas in Indian business history. It speaks to the enormous possibilities of technology-driven education, the risks of unchecked ambition, and the challenges of building durable businesses in a fast-moving sector. The latest Byju’s news, with its interplay of insolvency hearings, US court battles, and asset bidding wars, is the final chapter of a story that once seemed to promise nothing but triumph.
What makes this story particularly important is its scale. A company that once served 150 million registered students, backed by the world’s most prominent investors, and helmed by a genuinely gifted educator collapsed not because learning itself stopped mattering, but because the business built around it lost its way. That is a lesson worth taking seriously, whether you are an investor, an entrepreneur, a policymaker, or simply someone who cares about the future of education in India and beyond.
The Byju’s news cycle is not over. Court proceedings continue. Asset sales are still being negotiated. Former employees and students are still seeking resolution. But whatever the final outcome, the story of Byju’s will be studied, debated, and referenced for years to come as the defining edtech story of our generation.