In a bid to strengthen its top management team and enter a smooth phase of operations, Housing.com has appointed Nikhil Rungta as its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), reports ET. Prior to joining Housing.com, he was the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Reliance Jio.
Nikhil Rungta was also the first CMO for Google in India, where he held that position for four years. Having more than 20 years of experience, he has played key business leadership roles at start-ups like Yebhi and Yatra.com.
Commenting about the appointment of Nikhil, Jason Kothari, CBO of Housing, said,
For the last two decades, he has worked in leadership roles across sales, marketing and e-commerce with both multinationals and start-ups. He has a deep understanding of the Indian consumer market and has used a mix of traditional marketing and digital media to grow world-class businesses and brands from the ground up.
Ever since the co-founder and CEO of the company – Rahul Yadav was fired by its board, the company has been struggling in management as well in achieving growth. It has had a rather turmoilous ride so far as the company also struggles to generate revenues.
Post-Rahul Era
Yup, thats what we are calling it. After Yadav’s exit, Rishabh Gupta was appointed interim Chief Executive Officer in July, while Jason Kothari was appointed as the Chief Business Officer in August to drive the company’s growth in India.
In September, Housing.com appointed Keerthi Kiran as Vice President of New Real Estate Projects. Last month, the company appointed Mani Rangarajan as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Nandini Mehta as General Counsel.
Couple of months ago, Housing hired advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal in order to reduce cash burn and turn the company profitable. The company also jumped into the advertising business with the launch of Brand Falcon, which provides marketing and branding solutions to real estate developers.
Earlier it was reported that the company is close to raising around $35 million from its existing investor – SoftBank, at a valuation of Rs. 2,260 crore. Till now, the company has raised $139.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners, Helion Venture Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and SoftBank Capital.
Founded in 2012 by a bunch of 12 IIT Bombay dropouts, Housing currently has presence in over 50 cities and is employing about 2,500 people. It has around 6,000 brokers on its portal.
