Controversial co-founder and CEO of Housing.com Rahul Yadav is at it again. In a dramatic announcement made at a town-hall on Wednesday, Yadav has said he will transfer his shares in the online real estate firm in favour of employees of the company.
An official statement from the company, which was sent out late evening, said Yadav has allotted his personal shares worth Rs 150-200 crore to all 2,251 employees of the company.
“I am just 26 and it is too early in life to get serious about money,” Yadav said in the statement.
The statement said that Housing.com employees will get approximately one year of their salaries worth of shares in the company.
Yadav, while explaining the reason behind this move said, "Housing was started because of two reasons:
1. House hunting problem is unsolved globally. Just the problem statement gives me a lot of kick.
2. In each and every country there are four to five players doing the same poor job and still not able to solve the problem. Across the globe there are 500+ players. We want to unify all and create a global giant for real estate so that one company can afford much higher level of R&D and technological innovation to push the category forward.
Other than these two, there is no other factor at play here, including money!"
Housing, which was started by Yadav and 11 other friends from IIT Bombay in 2012, is one of the hottest tech startups in the country as it revolutionised housing search by introducing sophisticated visual tools.
The company has so far raised $120 million in five rounds including $90 million from Japan's Softbank, now valuing the company in the range of $200-300 million.
Yadav, who shot off a harshly-worded resignation letter on April 30 following differences with investors, took back his resignation and decided to stay on in the company after a compromise reached at the board meeting on May 5.
Besides Japan’s SoftBank, which is a major investor in the company with one-third stake, Helion Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners and Falcon Edge Capital are also shareholders.
Housing competes with PropTiger, in which News Corp, the owner of the parent of this website, holds 25 per cent stake.