Byju Raveendran, the founder and CEO of India's most-valued startup Byju’s, has set up a separate entity called Byjus Investments to route investment into Think and Learn, the entity that runs the edtech Byju's.
Byjus Investments Pvt Ltd, an entity registered with the Registrar of Companies Bangalore, will serve as the vehicle to route the $400 million that Raveendran said he will invest in Byju’s in March, as part of a larger $800-million financing round.
According to data available on the Ministry of Corporate Affairs website, the entity was set up on March 7, four days before Byju’s announced the fundraise, with a paid-up share capital of Rs 100 crore and an authorised share capital of Rs 110 crore.
The MCA website also shows Byju Raveendran, Divya Gokulnath and Riju Ravindran as Byjus Investments’ directors. Gokulnath is Raveendran’s wife and Co-founder of Byju’s, while Ravindran is a director at Byju’s and a few companies acquired by Byju’s, including Aakash Educational Services and Whitehat Junior.
“This (setting up a separate legal entity) is usually done to avoid personal liability. So the $400 million that Byju’s has committed to the $800 million round will come from this entity. The money will be raised from large financial institutions and flow through this ,” a person familiar with the matter said.
The source further said that Byjus Investments could eventually serve as the family office to make other investments, but this could not be immediately ascertained.
Sources also told Moneycontrol that Raveendran so far has got commitments worth $200 million of the $400 million debt that he plans to raise.
The edtech unicorn had announced raising $800 million in March with Raveendran leading the funding round along with participation from Sumeru Ventures, Vitruvian Partners and BlackRock. Raveendran’s stake in the company was set to increase to 25 percent after his $400-million investment from 23 percent.
The company raised the funds at a valuation of $22 billion, making it India’s most valuable startup, and the world’s most valuable edtech firm. Bloomberg reported recently that it was in talks with multiple special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), with plans to to go public via a merger with one of them.
Byjus did not comment for this story.
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