Exclusive: Housing’s Senior Management Team Leaves To Join Rahul Yadav’s New Startup

After being in the limelight for months due to the entire Rahul Yadav saga, Mumbai-based real estate portal, Housing.com, is now going to grab some more eye balls.

Few days ago, we had reported about Housing’s plan to lay off around 600 employees from the company. But it now seems that not only is the company firing employees, but also, there are a number of people who are “voluntarily quitting” the company and once again going back to join the ex-CEO, Rahul Yadav.

Keeping the details of what Rahul is up to in his next venture undisclosed, according to a source close to the development, Rahul has managed to grab a huge round of funding from some of the top entrepreneurs from the Indian startup ecosystem including Flipkart’s Sachin & Binny Bansal; Paytm’s Vijay Shekhar Sharma and few others.

According to our sources, Housing.com’ Chief Marketing Officer, Pratik Seal; Azeem Zainulbhai, chief of staff at Housing, who was taking care of the finance function at Housing and Suvonil Chatterjee, Chief Design Officer at Housing have left the company. Adding on, Azeem and Suvonil have joined Rahul’s startup as co-founders. About 6-7 other senior level people have also left to join him.

The message sent to Pratik failed to elicit any response. However Suvonil, in a Facebook post, mentioned about his move from the company. But he declined to share any further details when asked.

At the time when Rahul was heading Housing.com, there were over 2850 employees and now the current strength of the team stands at around 2200. According to the source, the product design team, offline marketing team & the design team assisting marketing team has been cut down.

After the exit of senior members from the team, a number of more employees are planning to leave the company soon as well.

The remaining core team members and people at the AVP, VP roles have left or are planning to leave the company as well

Another source has also revealed that the main reason for employees leaving the company is due to no respect left for the new leadership,“Rishabh is more like a puppet to the board.”

“Housing under Rahul’s leadership was a company driven by dreams and now it’s like meet the daily targets,” added the source. He further added, that in his prior role as the Chief Operating Officer, Rishabh had been pretty good, but he is not fit for the role of CEO and many find him immature for the role.

On the other side, the head of data science lab at Housing, Abhimanyu Dhamija, who had left the company in April, is working on a new startup around beauty services, Amber. A few Housing.com’s employees have joined his startup after resigning from the company.

The current financial condition of Housing is yet another reason why employees are leaving with many doubting how long the company will be able to survive with the drying up warchest. The company was reportedly in talks with the Chinese real estate portal, SouFun, for either a strategic investment or a buyout. But after Rahul Yadav’s departure from the company, there are slim chances of SouFun investing in the company.

However, according to a few sources, Softbank might decide to chip in a bridge round, but on the same or little more valuation as since the last round as there has been no growth in Housing’s business.

Keeping in mind what Rahul is planning for his new startup, the source told us that Rahul might not be joining Bigg Boss after all and wants to focus on the startup.

Update: Post publishing this article, we got the following statement from Housing.

“The Housing senior management team that will be driving the company going forward is not only very much intact but will be expanding significantly soon, as the company enters a new dynamic phase of driving efficiencies and growth.” – iCEO & COO Rishabh Gupta and CBO Jason Kothari.