Byju Raveendran

Byju Raveendran was born in Azhikode, a coastal village in Kannur district, Kerala, to two schoolteachers, and preferred sport to the classroom as a boy. He earned a B.Tech in mechanical engineering from Government Engineering College, Kannur, and worked as a service engineer for a shipping company. While helping friends prepare for the CAT, the entrance test for the Indian Institutes of Management, he sat the exam himself and scored in the 100th percentile, then did it a second time.

Byju Raveendran founded Think and Learn Private Limited, the company behind BYJU'S, in 2011, after his CAT and school maths classes had grown to fill auditoriums and stadiums. He launched the BYJU'S Learning App in 2015, built a large field sales force and raised money from investors including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, General Atlantic and Silver Lake, taking the company to a $22 billion valuation in 2022. He bought Aakash, Epic, WhiteHat Jr, Great Learning, Toppr, Tynker and Osmo between 2019 and 2021 and took a $1.2 billion term loan. After lenders declared default and accounts ran late, Think and Learn entered insolvency in July 2024 and his powers as a director were suspended. He faces lender litigation in the US over funds moved out of BYJU'S Alpha and was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt by a Singapore court in May 2026. He denies wrongdoing.

Education: Government College of Engineering, Kannur. Byju Raveendran was born in 1980.