Last month, Housing.com, an online real estate start-up, founded by a group of students from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, made headlines for its massive hiring spree when it set out to quadruple its 100-member tech workforce by offering plush packages to potential recruits in India's premier institutions. A fresh round of $90 million in funding flowed in to the company, which set out to list 40 million homes across 300 Indian cities.
This month, the headlines have changed dramatically.
The latest in the flurry of controversies is a legal notice this week to the Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav from the Times Group that seeks Rs 100 crore in damages for an internal email that Yadav is said to have sent to the company’s employees. The notice purportedly relates to a March 12 email in which Yadav reportedly alleged that the Times Group backed magicbricks.com which is one of the bigger players in the online real estate sector, was out to “malign” Housing.com.
The Times Group alleged that the email which soon surfaced on the social media and subsequently made headlines was "highly libelous, scandalous, false, defamatory, malicious and irresponsible’ and added that the "defamatory email is per se perverse and defamatory to our goodwill and reputation".
This legal notice is the latest in a series of crises faced by Housing.com in recent days as it has been trying to deal with a deadly car accident involving one of its co-founders, a public spat with Sequoia Capital and a rebranding campaign that didn't earn it many fans.
Spat with Sequoia
Housing.com's tale of woe started at the beginning of the month, when an angry email by Yadav to Shailendra Singh, the Managing Partner of the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India, made its way to a website called Quora. In the mail, Yadav refers to Singh as "dude" and accuses the Sequoia executive of doing "inhuman[e] and unethical things" by luring away Housing.com employees. The email was copied to hundreds of Housing.com employees.
The Economic Times, which is owned by the Times group, reported on the spat, adding that it had prompted Housing.com's investors to consider removing 26-year-old Yadav from the position of CEO. This prompted Yadav to write another internal email, claiming that the Times Group was attacking Housing.com because the group's magicbricks.com portal ‒ a competitor to Housing.com ‒ was attempting to raise funds in the US.
This mail earned the firm attention of the Times Group's legal department.
New logo
That isn't the company's only problem. On Holi, Housing.com got a makeover and adopted an upwards pointing arrow along with the words “look up” as a logo. Even though the new design came with more peppy colours and an explainer video, it received its share of criticism.
For starters, NextBigWhat, an online media outlet that keeps track of start-ups, pointed to the similarities between Housing's new logo and that of an iPhone app LookUp.
Social media, meanwhile, was divided on what to make of the new look.
Co-founder's car kills two
Before that, on February 20, Housing.com's co-founder Advitiya Sharma was driving a car with three other employees of the company when it crashed into a tree in Mumbai. Two employees died.
A case was subsequently registered against Sharma under Indian Penal Code Sections 304A (causing death due to negligence), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) but he was later released on bail.
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This month, the headlines have changed dramatically.
The latest in the flurry of controversies is a legal notice this week to the Housing.com CEO Rahul Yadav from the Times Group that seeks Rs 100 crore in damages for an internal email that Yadav is said to have sent to the company’s employees. The notice purportedly relates to a March 12 email in which Yadav reportedly alleged that the Times Group backed magicbricks.com which is one of the bigger players in the online real estate sector, was out to “malign” Housing.com.
The Times Group alleged that the email which soon surfaced on the social media and subsequently made headlines was "highly libelous, scandalous, false, defamatory, malicious and irresponsible’ and added that the "defamatory email is per se perverse and defamatory to our goodwill and reputation".
This legal notice is the latest in a series of crises faced by Housing.com in recent days as it has been trying to deal with a deadly car accident involving one of its co-founders, a public spat with Sequoia Capital and a rebranding campaign that didn't earn it many fans.
Spat with Sequoia
Housing.com's tale of woe started at the beginning of the month, when an angry email by Yadav to Shailendra Singh, the Managing Partner of the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India, made its way to a website called Quora. In the mail, Yadav refers to Singh as "dude" and accuses the Sequoia executive of doing "inhuman[e] and unethical things" by luring away Housing.com employees. The email was copied to hundreds of Housing.com employees.
The Economic Times, which is owned by the Times group, reported on the spat, adding that it had prompted Housing.com's investors to consider removing 26-year-old Yadav from the position of CEO. This prompted Yadav to write another internal email, claiming that the Times Group was attacking Housing.com because the group's magicbricks.com portal ‒ a competitor to Housing.com ‒ was attempting to raise funds in the US.
This mail earned the firm attention of the Times Group's legal department.
New logo
That isn't the company's only problem. On Holi, Housing.com got a makeover and adopted an upwards pointing arrow along with the words “look up” as a logo. Even though the new design came with more peppy colours and an explainer video, it received its share of criticism.
For starters, NextBigWhat, an online media outlet that keeps track of start-ups, pointed to the similarities between Housing's new logo and that of an iPhone app LookUp.
Social media, meanwhile, was divided on what to make of the new look.
http://t.co/WL04GxNHKN has got a rebranding that can only be described as Deepak Chopra-inspired new age nonsense. https://t.co/MtHya3dNRh
— Madhu Menon (@madmanweb) March 6, 2015What was this http://t.co/PJeIAac0m2 ad trying to say? Was it even for a housing listing site or Deepak Chopra? https://t.co/VqTqsYXIaK #Wtf
— this is a blah tweet (@blahfamous) March 15, 2015Co-founder's car kills two
Before that, on February 20, Housing.com's co-founder Advitiya Sharma was driving a car with three other employees of the company when it crashed into a tree in Mumbai. Two employees died.
A case was subsequently registered against Sharma under Indian Penal Code Sections 304A (causing death due to negligence), 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) but he was later released on bail.
