One more Housing.com co-founder quits

Advitiya Sharma is fifth co-founder to leave the start-up now left with three more co-founders.

Advitiya Sharma, a founding member of Housing.com, stepped down from Housing.com on Wednesday.

Sharma is the fifth co-founder to leave Housing.com. Rahul Yadav was ousted from Housing.com last July.

The start-up is now left with three more co-founders - Abhishek Anand is chief technology officer; Snehil Buxy is chief product officer; and Amrit Raj is head of digital marketing.

Since Yadav’s departure, Housing has been in a state of flux, with co-founders and senior management forming an orderly queue for the exit door.

Sharma said he had quit the real estate tech company to start his own venture.

While cagey about what he planned, the IITian said he would take a short break.

“I had taken three to four weeks off to think and decide on the next course of action. I am glad I consulted my near and dear ones on moving on,” said Sharma. 

Sources, however, said he had detached himself over the past six months and taken a backseat once Jason Kothari was hired as chief business officer and later promoted to chief executive officer in November.

SoftBank is lead investor in the company.

The bespectacled 26-year-old was originally on the board with Yadav and was considered one of the driving forces in the company.

His position, he said, would remain vacant in the company.

Sources in the company said the departure was coming especially after Buxy was given the coveted chief product officer’s designation, something Yadav, according to media reports, too, eyed at the fag end of his stint at Housing.

In his farewell e-mail, Sharma thanked the staff for their help and referred to the spate of layoffs as something that shook the company.

“The toughest phase in our history was the past nine months. Nothing haunts a team more than a threat, to the survival of what they stand for,” he wrote. 

“We had to shut down a few departments, and rethink our vision. It meant letting go of many people we had worked with, been friends with. It was excruciating. They will always have the life-long gratitude, of a grateful entrepreneur,” he wrote.

Just after Diwali, Housing had fired close to 700 people and shut down several divisions including rental.

The company had started with the vision of being “the Google of real estate related searches”.

A series of diversifications into segments such as media buying led to a cash burn, which came close to Rs 32 crore (Rs 320 million) a month.

In December, Housing announced it had received further funding from SoftBank worth Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion).

Sources said that the company was aiming for $50 million, but was given much less.