Three co-founders quit Housing.com to start new venture

Three more co-founders of Housing.com have quit, with only three of the original 12 co-founders now remaining with the realty portal. Co-founders Abhishek Anand, Ravish Naresh and Sanat Ghosh exited the startup two weeks back to start their new venture.

"Abhishek, Ravish and Sanat played an important role in building the foundation of Housing.com. They are moving out to pursue their new dream of starting another new venture," Jason Kothari, CEO, Housing.com said in an email to Techcircle.in.

Anand was chief technology officer at Housing while Naresh was chief executive officer of Indian Real Estate Forum, which was acquired by the real estate portal last year. Ghosh was assistant vice-president, product at Housing.

The development was first reported in Mint.

Only last month, co-founder and former board member Advitiya Sharma quit the company in March to start his own venture.

Of the 12 IIT-Bombay alumni who founded Housing.com in 2012, only Amrit Raj, head of digital marketing; Jaspreet Singh Saluja, who heads data operations; and Snehil Buxy, who was elevated as chief product officer in January this year, now remain with the company. Four co-founders had left the startup in 2014.

Housing.com, operated by Locon Solutions Pvt. Ltd, has seen a shuffling of the top team with a number of hires and exits, since co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav was asked to leave by the investors in July last year after a public spat.

In November, the firm's board had declared Kothari, who had joined the startup as chief business officer in August and had then been re-designated as interim CEO along with Rishabh Gupta, as CEO.

In April, it appointed Vineet Singh, former executive vice president and business head of rival real estate website 99Acres.com, as senior advisor. Singh also has an undisclosed stake in the realty portal.

Last year, Mani Rangarajan was brought in as chief financial officer while Nikhil Rungta was appointed chief marketing officer. Housing has also appointed Nandini Mehta as general counsel, Abhishek Hota as chief of staff and Keerthi Kiran as vice president, new real estate projects.

Faced with high cash burn and low returns, Housing, under Kothari, has cut jobs, shut businesses and scaled down operations to focus exclusively on apartment sales. In January this year, it received a bridge round of $15 million from its lead investor Japanese internet and telecom conglomerate SoftBank, to run its operations even as it explored options including merging with e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, another SoftBank investee company. Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, too, are investors in Housing.

Housing competes with PropTiger, MagicBricks and other realty portals. News Corp, which acquired the parent of this website, has a significant minority stake in PropTiger.