Meet billionaire Indian who pledges homes for funds to pay staff, lost 30,000 crore in one year

Many Indian businessmen led billionaire dollar empires but later saw a downfall in their businesses. One such person is Indian ed-tech Byju's founder Byju Raveendran, who lost around Rs 30,600 crore a year. According to Forbes, he had a combined net worth of Rs 30,600 crore along with his family in 2022 but is now worth around Rs 833 crore (USD 100 million). This comes amid his ed-tech firm Byju's battles with a cash crunch.

Raveendran has pledged his home as well as those owned by his family members to raise money for paying employees, Bloomberg reported. The properties include two houses owned by the billionaire founder's family and an under-construction villa in Bengaluru as collateral to borrow USD 12 million, the report said.

Raveendran founded Byju's in 2011. Amsterdam-listed investment company Prosus wrote down the value of its 9.6% stake in Think & Learn, the parent company of the Bangalore-based edtech company. It has pegged Byju’s valuation at under USD 3 billion, 86% down from its peak valuation of USD 22 billion in July 2022. The value of the 18% stake held by Byju’s founder is now estimated at USD 100 million. Prosus has invested USD 536 million in Think & Learn since 2018.

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