Byju’s founder pledges home to pay salaries to his 15,000 employees: Report
Byju Raveendran, the founder of ed-tech platform Byju’s, has pledged his home and those owned by his family members to raise funds for paying salaries to his employees, Bloomberg reported on Monday.
The properties pledged include two houses owned by his family and an under-construction villa in Bengaluru as a collateral to borrow $12 million ( ₹100.07 crore). Once generated, the money would help Raveendran pay 15,000 employees in Think and Learn Private, the company owning the platform.
Last month, the company reported its audited results for 2022 where it said operating losses fell 6% to 24 billion rupees ($287.95 million) for its core online education business for the year ended March 31, 2022.
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate had issued show cause notices to Byju Raveendran and Think and Learn Pvt Ltd over alleged foreign exchange violations to the tune of ₹9,362 crore, causing loss of revenue of the government.
The central agency alleged both Raveendran and Think and Learn contraven the provisions of FEMA “by failing to submit documents of imports against advance remittances made outside India, by failing to realise proceeds of exports made outside India, by delayed filing of documents against the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) received into the company, by failing to file documents against the remittances made by the company outside India and by failing to allot shares against FDI received into the company.”
Responding to the notice, Byju’s had said that the queries that it received in the notice are ‘solely technical in nature’.
“The Company has however filed requisite intimation contemporaneously for all FDI which is received in accordance with the eligibility criteria in law and not affected by the alleged non filing of APR. The Company has also issued/allotted shares within the prescribed time against the FDI so received,” the statement added.
