Online real estate portal Housing.com’s co-founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav has joined ANAROCK Property Consultants, a venture floated by former chief of realty consultancy JLL India Anuj Puri, Yadav confirmed to VCCircle.
Yadav, who has joined ANAROCK as chief product and technology officer, will be based out of the company's office in Mumbai's Bandra-Kurla Complex, a press statement said. He is already building his team of product and technology experts, the statement added.
“This appointment is in line with ANAROCK's technology-driven orientation and business model for its residential advisory services...So far, the real estate sector has not been able to emulate the success of e-commerce for consumer durables and services,†Puri said in the statement.
Last month, VCCircle reported that Puri had acquired the residential real estate-focused private equity business of consultancy firm JLL India for Rs 461 crore ($71.5 million). This was Puri’s second asset purchase from his former employer.
Separately, Puri had said that he had launched a real estate investment platform housing two funds with a total corpus of Rs 461 crore, but stopped short of saying that the funds were bought from JLL India.
Puri worked with JLL for about 10 years and quit as country head and chairman in January this year.
Yadav, the 26-year-old IIT Bombay drop-out who co-founded Housing.com along with 11 batchmates, had grabbed headlines for the wrong reasons in 2015—he threatened Shailendra Singh, managing director of venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, in a public spat, took on the Times Group and accused it of deliberately maligning Housing.com. He also attracted a legal notice, and shot off a caustic resignation letter in which he called the investors of the company "intellectually incapable." In July 2015, he was ousted from the company he co-founded.
In January this year, Housing.com was merged with real estate portal PropTiger. NewsCorp, the largest investor in PropTiger, owns the parent of this website.
