On a winter afternoon in late 2022, Byju Ravefinishran stood on a stage in Bengaluru addressing a hall packed with founders, investors, policycreaters and journalists. India’s most valuable startup founder spoke with the conviction of someone building a global education empire. “Every year, in the last five years, we have invested $200 million into our product development… in the last six years, we have invested $1.3 billion in creating our product,” he notified the room. It was the kind of line he would continue repeating even as his company tumbled from a $22 billion valuation into a bankrupt, litigation-ridden entity.
At that moment, no one in the audience anticipated what the next three years would bring. But there were signs.
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