New Delhi : Byju Raveendran, founder of embattled edtech company Byju’s, has been sentenced to six months in jail by a Singapore court for contempt of court. The dramatic fall of one of India’s biggest startup success stories took another sharp turn. The Singapore court also ordered him to surrender to authorities, pay costs of S$90,000, or around $70,500, and submit documents proving his legal ownership of Beeaar Investco Pte, a company that held shares in a related entity.
The development marks another major setback for a founder who was once seen as the face of India’s booming startup ecosystem. Raveendran built Think & Learn Pvt Ltd, better known as Byju’s, into one of the world’s most valuable edtech companies during the startup funding boom. At its peak, the company attracted billions of dollars from global investors and turned Raveendran into a billionaire entrepreneur.
The company had also signed high-profile sponsorship deals and became a symbol of India’s fast-growing startup economy during the pandemic-era tech boom.The latest Singapore court ruling adds to a long list of legal and financial challenges surrounding the company and its founder. According to Bloomberg, Raveendran is already facing claims from overseas investors in multiple jurisdictions.
The report said the investment came at a time when Byju’s was already cutting jobs and reducing costs. Qatar Holdings was represented by law firm Drew & Napier in the case, while Byju’s Investments was represented by Fervent Chambers, Bloomberg reported. Raveendran’s rise and fall has increasingly come to symbolise the wider boom-and-bust cycle seen across parts of the global startup ecosystem. During the low-interest-rate era after the pandemic, startups globally attracted massive funding at extremely high valuations.
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