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Former 99Acres EVP Vineet Singh is senior advisor at Housing, invests in realty portal

By Manu P Toms

  • 04 Apr 2016
Former 99Acres EVP Vineet Singh is senior advisor at Housing, invests in realty portal
Vineet Singh, Senior Advisor, Housing

Realty portal Housing.com, run by Locon Solutions Pvt Ltd, has brought in Vineet Singh, former executive vice president and business head of rival real estate website 99Acres.com, as senior advisor. Singh has also made an undisclosed investment in Housing.com.

Singh, who was part of the management team of Info Edge (India) Ltd and sales head of its internet properties, 99Acres.com, Jeevansathi.com and Naukri.com, left the firm in October 2014 and founded an online marketplace for building materials, Buildzar.com, a year back.

“On board as a personal investor, Vineet will also serve as a senior advisor to the company working closely with the management team,” said Jason Kothari, CEO of Housing.com, in a statement.

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“I am a proud investor in Housing.com and look forward to further this dynamic company on its path to becoming the largest and most trusted player in the online real estate space," said Singh.

Singh joins Housing at a time when the company is striving hard to improve its unit economics.

Faced with high cash burn and low returns, Housing.com, under its CEO Jason Kothari, has cut jobs, shut businesses and scaled down operations to focus exclusively on apartment sales. In January this year, it received a bridge round of $15 million from its lead investor Japanese internet and telecom conglomerate SoftBank, to run its operations even as it explored options including merging with e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, another SoftBank investee company. Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, too, are investors in Housing.com.

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Meanwhile, the company most recently held talks to buy struggling real estate portal IndiaHomes.

Singh’s joining as a senior advisor precedes a slew of top level appointments at Housing, starting with Kothari who was made CEO in November last year. Kothari succeeded co-founder Rahul Yadav, who was asked to leave by Housing's investors following a public spat. Last month, Housing.com co-founder and former board member Advitiya Sharma also put in his papers. Meanwhile, in January, Housing appointed co-founder Snehil Buxy as product chief. Besides Kothari, Housing has brought in Mani Rangarajan as chief financial officer, Nikhil Rungta as chief marketing officer, Nandini Mehta as general counsel, Abhishek Hota as chief of staff and Keerthi Kiran as vice president, new real estate projects.

Housing competes with PropTiger, MagicBricks and other realty portals. News Corp, which acquired the parent of this website, has a significant minority stake in PropTiger.

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