Info Edge Writes Off INR 276 Cr Investment In Rahul Yadav’s 4B Networks

Listed internet major Info Edge has written off its entire investment in 4B Networks, a venture of former Housing.com founder and CEO Rahul Yadav.

“Owing to concerns around [the] uncertainty of funding environment for 4B Networks, an impairment of INR 276 Cr has been charged as an exceptional item,” said Info Edge in its financial results for the third quarter of the financial year 2022-23 (Q3FY23).

The move propelled Info Edge’s total exceptional loss to INR 412 Cr, resulting in its profit falling 99% year-on-year.

Speaking in an analyst call, Info Edge CEO Hitesh Oberai said, “We are writing down the investment in light of the current state of the environment and the significant uncertainty towards funding options available to 4B in future.”

To be sure, Info Edge had an exposure of nearly INR 520 Cr in 4B Networks; the listed internet giant has fully impaired the entirety of the same.

“In line with accounting policies consistently followed by the company, investment in 4B Networks Pvt Ltd, a partly owned subsidiary of its 100% subsidiary Allcheckdeals India Pvt Ltd amounting to INR 5,199.31 Mn… has been fully impaired, considering the current state of affairs and other relevant factors including excessive cash burn, prevailing liquidity issues and significant uncertainty towards funding options,” said Info Edge in its quarterly filings. 

4B Networks, the proptech startup of Housing.com founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav, has Info Edge as its sole investor. Founded in 2020, the proptech startup last raised funding in an INR 90 Cr round in September 2022. The deal valued 4B Networks at $185 Mn.

The deal was executed via Info Edge’s wholly-owned subsidiary Allcheckdeals India, which owns a 59.8% stake in the Mumbai-based proptech platform.

The Mumbai-based startup claims to host more than 1 Lakh brokers and has more than 1,000 real estate projects live on its platform. Besides, the startup also claims to have disbursed home loans worth INR 4,000 Cr since its inception.

4B Networks: Third Innings Of Rahul Yadav

4B Networks is Yadav’s third startup overall and second in the proptech segment.

The IIT Bombay dropout founded Housing.com along with 10 others, while still on campus. Later, Yadav was made the CEO of the company. However, in 2015, he was shown the door by Housing.com following a very public spat with Shailendra Singh of Sequoia India.

After his time at Housing.com came to an unsavoury end, he founded Intelligent Interfaces in 2015, raising funds from Flipkart founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Micromax cofounder Rahul Sharma and cricketer Yuvraj Singh.

Intelligent Interfaces was supposed to provide intelligent data aggregation and visualisation solutions to the government, to make governance 100 times more efficient. 

However, after having raised INR 3.1 Cr at a valuation of over INR 170 Cr, Intelligent Interfaces shut down in mid-2016, having burned through the funding raised.