Byju Raveendran, the eponymous founder of edtech titan Byju’s, has pledged his home as well as those owned by his family members to raise money for paying employees as the company battles a cash crunch, according to people familiar with the matter.

Two homes owned by the former billionaire’s family in Bengaluru and his under-construction villa in Epsilon – a plush gated community in the city – were offered as collateral to borrow $12 million, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not public. The startup used the funds to pay salaries to 15,000 employees in Byju’s parent firm, Think & Learn Pvt., on Monday, they said.

The founder has been pulling all stops in his fight to keep the company afloat and to ease its financial pressures. Once India’s most valuable tech startup, the firm is in the process of selling its US-based kids’ digital reading platform for about $400 million. It is also locked in a legal battle with creditors over a missed interest payment on a $1.2 billion term loan.

Raveendran, once worth almost $5 billion, has raised debts of about $400 million on a personal level, pledging all his shares in the parent company, according to the people. He also plowed back into the company the $800 million he raised through share sales in the past couple of years, leaving him cash-strapped, they said.

Last month, Byju’s published its first results in years, which showed losses at Think & Learn narrowed marginally amid a pandemic-era boom in business. An Indian federal agency also concluded an investigation into the startup’s overseas fundraising, and penalties, if any, are expected to be nominal, the company said in a statement last week.

The INDIA opposition bloc meeting to take place in Delhi tomorrow has been postponed, sources told NDTV this afternoon. The postponement comes shortly after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Samajwadi Party boss Akhilesh Yadav both said they plan to skip the meet. On Monday, Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said she too would not attend. All three are senior members of the bloc; in fact, Nitish Kumar is widely seen as a founding member of the opposition grouping.

Earlier today sources told NDTV Nitish Kumar and Akhilesh Yadav would send representatives instead; the Janata Dal (United) leader was expected to send party President Rajiv Ranjan and senior figure Sanjay Jha, while Mr Yadav, a former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, was expected to send his uncle, and Rajya Sabha MP, Ramgopal Yadav.

READ | Akhilesh Yadav, Nitish Kumar To Skip INDIA Meet, May Send Representatives

Sources, however, indicated that the other half of the Bihar government – the Rashtriya Janata Dal – would have been represented by its top leaders – party patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav and his son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the Bihar Deputy Chief Minister.

Anumula Revanth Reddy, Telangana Congress chief credited with leading the party to a thumping win in the November 30 Assembly polls, is the Congress high command’s choice for Chief Minister, sources have said. The sources have said the Congress central leadership, led by party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, has taken the decision. The final announcement will be made after an ongoing meeting between Mr Kharge and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, who oversaw the Congress campaign in Telangana.

The 54-year-old leader, who was the face of the Congress’s winning campaign, has faced stiff resistance from within the party in his journey to the top post. The swearing-in ceremony, which was to take place last afternoon, was called off after a section of state Congress veterans opposed the choice of Mr Reddy for the Chief Minister post.

These detractors include former state Congress chief N Uttam Kumar Reddy to Bhatti Vikramarka, Komatireddy Venkat Reddy to Damodar Rajanarasimha. They reportedly opposed the outright candidature of Revanth Reddy, pointing to pending corruption cases and the Congress’s poor show in Mr Reddy’s Lok Sabha constituency.