Stazyilla co-founder and CEO Yogenda Vasupal is out on bail, after having spent 28 days in jail in connection with an alleged case of cheating an advertisement agency. The bail was granted by the Madras High Court.
"The accused is granted bail on a condition to deposit Rs 40 lakh to the account of the crime number in the Magistrate court," Justice S. Baskaran said in his order, according to the Hindu.
Vasupal was jailed on March 14 in connection with a complaint filed by Jigsaw Advertising for alleged default of payments worth Rs1.70 crore.
Started in 2005 as Inasra.com and rebranded as Stayzilla in 2010, the online platform for hosting and booking homestays was in the news for temporarily shutting down operations.
Vasupal's arrest came to light, when on the evening of March 14, another founder and CFO of the start-up Sachit Singhi, wrote a frantic email to investors, including Avnish Bajaj and Rajinder Balaraman of Matrix Partners, and Anup Gupta and K G Subramanian of Nexus Venture Partners that Vasupal was missing.
His arrest caused unease among the start-up community in India, prompting about 73 founders to write to union home minister Rajnath Singh on March 20, seeking his intervention in the matter.
Karnataka minister for IT Priyank Kharge also spoke to concerned officials in Tamil Nadu about the issue.
Stayzilla has raised $33.5 million from Nexus, Matrix, Indian Angel Network, Vertexperts Consulting, Splice Capital and InnoVen Capital.
