Proptiger, the NewsCorp backed online real estate listing platform, has today announced notable additions to its executive team. The startup also announced the exit of Co-Founder Prashan Agarwal, as he leaves the company to pursue “other entrepreneurial opportunities”.
As for the new appointments, Sunil Mishra has been named Chief Business Officer. In this position, he will lead the company’s new homes business including business development, sales and collections. Sunil will be based at the company’s Mumbai office. Sunil was previously the Chief Executive Officer of Karvy Private Wealth, the wealth management business of the hugely diversified Karvy Group.
Ex-MakeMyTrip Exec Rohit Hasteer has joined as Chief Human Resources Officer. In this role, he will be responsible for all facets of the company’s human resources including talent acquisition and leadership development. Rohit will be based at the company’s headquarters in Noida. During his tenure of 5 years at MakeMyTrip, the company was ranked in the top 4 in the “India’s Best Companies to Work” study by Great Place to Work Institute, India & The Economic Times three years in a row.
Marketing veteran Neeraj Chaturvedi has been appointed as Chief Marketing Officer. He will be responsible for building the company’s brand and leveraging its new acquisitions. Neeraj will be based at the company’s headquarters in Noida.
The more intriguing announcement though, was of PropTiger’s Co Founder Prashan Agarwal’s exit. Considering the recent Makaan.com acquisition which placed PropTiger at a hugely advantageous position, exiting from the company at such a point seems a rather unreasonable option. We still haven’t had any official statement from Prashan over his exit, apart from this usual prepared statement from CEO and Co-Founder Dhruv Agarwala :
We acknowledge the contribution that Prashan has made to the company and we wish him the very best in his next endeavour.
Last month, PropTiger announced the acquisition of rival platform Makaan.com. The acquisition was much in news, largely because Makaan.com is an old-timer in online real-estate and ruled the market in its initial days. The acquisition hinted towards a paradigm shift in how new-age companies have been acquiring more established players.
In November 2014, News Corp took a 25% stake in Elara Technologies Pte Ltd, which owns PropTiger.com. This was NewsCorp’s debut investment into India which was followed by the acquisitions of Bigdecisions.com and VCCircle. Other key investors in Elara include SAIF Partners and Accel Partners.
