Byju’s troubles just got worse—this time, not in India, but across the Atlantic. A United States-based finance unit of the company, called Alpha Inc., has filed a lawsuit against Byju’s founder Raveendran Byju, his wife and co-founder Divya Gokulnath, his brother Riju Ravindran, and long-time aide Anita Kishore.
The case, filed in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, accuses the four of allegedly orchestrating a “theft” of $533 million. Alpha Inc., which was set up to receive proceeds from a massive $1.5 billion loan deal (known as the Term Loan B or the Alpha Funds), claims this money was misused, misdirected, and wrapped up in a complicated web meant to keep lenders in the dark.
According to Alpha, the funds were meant to go into the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle), but instead, they were allegedly siphoned off and moved around without proper disclosure. The company’s official statement says this was a “web of deception designed and executed to defraud lenders”.
They also claim that Byju and his team “misrepresented financial information” and “prevented lenders from exercising remedies”—in simple terms, not letting the financiers take steps to protect or recover their money.
Interestingly, Alpha’s lawsuit follows a recent ruling by the same Delaware court, which reportedly went against Byju’s and its leadership in the same matter involving the missing $533 million.
That decision seems to have added weight to Alpha’s next move—pursuing legal action.
Meanwhile, back in India, Raveendran is not taking things lying down. On April 9, he took to X (formerly Twitter), posting screenshots of a police First Information Report (FIR) against some employees of consultancy giant Ernst & Young (EY). The FIR names Dinakar Venkatasubramanian, Rahul Agarwal, and Lokesh Gupta, along with another individual Pankaj Srivastava and the Delhi-based GLAS Trust.
In a post laced with frustration and fire (literally), Raveendran called them part of a “criminal conspiracy” and referred to GLAS as a “collective of crooks”. Throwing in a quote from the movie Pushpa, he declared, “I am not a flower; I am the fire that will shatter GLAS.”
In another tweet, Raveendran directly addressed EY India’s chairman Rajiv Memani, asking whether this alleged wrongdoing was the act of individuals or a larger issue within the company. He even posted a throwback photo from an EY award ceremony where he was being felicitated, saying EY had once honoured him as Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018 and 2020, and it was time to do the right thing now.
“There are tons of proofs that I will share,” he warned, without going into further details.
It’s a dramatic downfall for a company that once boasted a valuation of $22 billion and was hailed as the world’s most valuable edtech startup. But things began spiralling when Byju’s defaulted on a $1.2 billion loan. This led to legal action from its lenders in India, with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) eventually ruling in favour of the lenders, represented by GLAS Trust.
Raveendran has since challenged the NCLT decision and maintains that a group of individuals are framing him.
