Housing.com
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Housing.com was an Indian online real-estate startup founded in June 2012 by Rahul Yadav and eleven co-founders. It built a property listings and brokerage platform — famous early on for its rental arm hosting images of available rental properties — and became one of India's red-hot startups: SoftBank led a $90 million round in December 2014, its valuation peaked around $220-250 million, and it raised about $160 million in total, growing to roughly 2,500 employees.
02 / Housing.com FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
A founder meltdown destroyed the company from within. Co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav fought publicly with investors and employees, gave away his shares, resigned, returned, and was ultimately fired by the board in July 2015. The chaos drained talent and capital: hundreds of employees were laid off, underperforming businesses were shut, and the company could not raise fresh funds or grow fast enough. In January 2017 it was merged into rival PropTiger in an all-stock deal valuing Housing.com at only about $75 million — a face-saving merger for SoftBank after writing off most of its investment — with PropTiger's Dhruv Agarwala taking over the joint company.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Housing.com was founded in June 2012 by Rahul Yadav and eleven co-founders as an online real-estate platform.
- SoftBank round
SoftBank led a $90 million investment round; Housing.com's valuation peaked around $220-250 million.
- CEO fired
Co-founder and CEO Rahul Yadav was fired by the board in July 2015 after public fights with investors and employees; hundreds of employees were laid off.
- PropTiger merger
Housing.com merged with rival PropTiger in an all-stock deal in January 2017 at a reported ~$75 million valuation.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
Founded in June 2012 by Rahul Yadav and eleven co-founders; online real-estate listings platform.
- 02
SoftBank led a $90 million round in 2014; valuation peaked at $220-250 million; ~$160 million raised in total.
- 03
July 2015: CEO Rahul Yadav fired after public fights with investors; mass layoffs; rental arm shut.
- 04
Could not raise fresh funds or expand fast enough.
- 05
January 2017: merged into PropTiger at ~$75 million valuation (record event_year 2016/event_type reported_failure kept; merger reported Jan 2017).
- 06
No reliable realized loss figure was disclosed.