Singapore High Court Grants Stay on Jail Term for Byju's Founder Byju Raveendran

Singapore's high court has granted a stay on a six-month jail term for the founder of failed Indian technology firm Byju’s, his law firm Lazareff Le Bars said.

The decision marks a reprieve for an entrepreneur battling creditors in courts around the world. It followed a ruling last month that sentenced Byju Raveendran to half a year’s imprisonment for contempt and ordered him to pay costs of S$90,000 ($70,000), saying he disobeyed orders related to his assets dating back to 2024.

That marked the first time a judge has threatened to imprison the once prominent entrepreneur, who founded one of India’s highest-profile upstarts before a post-Covid slump pummeled the business. An appeal against the contempt finding has been filed, the lawyers said.

Raveendran’s founding of educational technology firm Think & Learn Pvt — better known as Byju’s — turned him into a billionaire, making him one of the biggest success stories among a wave of Indian startups that attracted capital from global firms.

He’s now being pursued in Singapore’s court system by a subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority, which participated in a funding round for the tech firm as it was cutting jobs and laying off staff. He also faces claims from foreign investors around the world, including in the US where lenders are fighting to claw back losses from a $1.2 billion loan that soured.