CEO of India's Housing.com transfers all his shares to staff
Rahul Yadav, the controversial CEO of VC-backed Indian property listing platform Housing.com, has said he will transfer all his shares in the company to its employees.
Yadav is Housing.com's fifth largest shareholder and owns a 4.57% stake in the business. His shares - which he claims are worth as much as INR2 billion ($31 million) - will be divided between 2,251 employees. In a statement, Yadav said, "I am just 26 and it is too early in life to get serious about money and the like".
The surprise announcement comes just a week after Yadav issued a dramatic resignation letter in which he accused company's investors - which include SoftBank, Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners - of being "intellectually incapable." He was reinstated as CEO within days after backtracking and issuing an apology.
Prior to this, in March, he had also entered into a public spat with Shailendra Singh, managing director with Sequoia Capital.
SoftBank led a $90 million round of funding for Housing.com in December of last year. The start-up initially received two rounds of angel funding in 2013 before Nexus came in with a $2.5 million Series A round. Earlier this year, Helion, Qualcomm Ventures and Nexus are put in a further $19 million.
Housing.com was set up in 2012 by a group of students from the Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay. The platform uses a map interface to list properties in 45 cities, providing additional information such as photographs and details of nearby local amenities to assist users in their search. It has over 350,000 verified listings.
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