Housing.com, a real estate services portal, said on Thursday that it has raised Rs 100 crore in a fresh round of funding from its existing investor, Japan's Softbank.
The investment is expected to give much-needed boost to the company following a fund crunch that forced it to layoff hundreds of employees to trim costs.
"We are now well-capitalised to aggressively execute on our focused strategy and growth plans and believe 2016 will be a great year for the company," said Housing.com CEO Jason Kothari.
Last week, Snapdeal was reported to be in talks with Housing.com to acquire it for $650-700 million. Commenting on the speculation, Housing.com responded, "We are in NO talks with anybody for any sale."
The portal's former CEO and co-founder Rahul Yadav had created a fair amount controversy at the company. Yadav had quit the real estate start-up in May 2015, criticising the board members in his resignation letter. Later, he made a U-turn by withdrawing his resignation and apologising to the board.
Finally, the company's board members decided to fire Yadav in July last year, stating "his behaviour is not befitting of a CEO and is detrimental to the company."
Founded in 2012, the valuation of Housing.com stood at Rs.1,500 crore ($250 million) during its last round of funding, which saw an investment of $90 million from SoftBank in November 2014.
The other investors include Nexus Ventures, Falcon Edge, Helion Ventures, Nirvana Ventures, Qualcomm, DST founder Yuri Milner, Viacom 18 co-founder Haresh Chawla, Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.
