BYJU’S insolvency process: Ranjan Pai's Manipal Group submits second bid to acquire Think & Learn

Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) has again submitted an expression of interest (EoI) to bid for embattled ed-tech firm BYJU'S parent company Think and Learn, which is facing insolvency before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), according to news agency Reuters. Manipal Education Chairman Ranjan Pai is already the largest shareholder in Aakash Educational Services, which is a part of the Think and Learn group. MEMG had also submitted an EOI for BYJU's parent before the EOI deadline was extended to November 13, 2025.

The EOI could pave the way for MEMG to receive final approval because it is the only applicant that has submitted a proposal to acquire the beleaguered ed-tech startup. If approved, it’ll help MEMG in the business consolidation of Aakash.

Once hailed as the face of India’s ed-tech boom, Byju Raveendran, founder & CEO of BYJU’S, is now battling to salvage the mission that made him a household name. From packed stadium classes to a multi-billion-dollar global empire, his journey mirrored the rise of India's startup ambitions, until it began to unravel.

In a candid conversation with ANI in May this year, Raveendran acknowledged that strategic missteps, hasty global expansion, and unexpected macroeconomic shocks contributed to BYJU’S unravelling over the past few years. Raveendran traced the crisis to the company’s aggressive push into 21 countries during the pandemic-era boom from 2019 to 2021, fuelled by capital and investor pressure to grow. “Every investor — we have 160 world-class equity investors — the mandate was: grow, grow, change the way kids learned,” he said. “We were raising money for growth… [but] when the world changed — interest rates went up, the Russia-Ukraine war started — liquidity dried up, $700 million of signed, committed capital didn’t turn up,” Raveendran added.

The liquidity crunch hit BYJU’S hard, disrupting operations, halting acquisitions, and derailing its global ambitions. “From (2022) onwards, it's almost now 3 years we have been struggling for liquidity, but I have no regrets in terms of putting all that money back because I was doing that to save the mission,” he said, emphasising that he and his family personally reinvested thousands of crores to sustain the company during the downturn.

BYJU’S is currently mired in a complex legal and financial crisis, centred around a $1.2 billion term loan,  and ongoing insolvency proceedings. The situation escalated after a default on a ₹158.9 crore sponsorship payment to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which triggered a corporate insolvency case in June last year. Although BYJU’S and BCCI have since settled, the matter has become further entangled after GLAS Trust, the term loan trustee, objected, claiming the funds used for the settlement were misallocated. The Bengaluru bench of NCLT had earlier now directed that the settlement be presented to BYJU’S Committee of Creditors (CoC), a move that could determine the company’s future.