Rahul Yadav is back; joins Anuj Puri's realty venture Anarock

Rahul Yadav, co-founder and former CEO of housing portal Housing.com, has joined ANAROCK Property Consultants, former JLL India head Anuj Puri’s latest venture, as chief product and technology officer.
 
ANANROCK, a real estate investment and fund platform spun out of JLL’s erstwhile residential brokerage business that Puri acquired earlier this year, was launched in June and is targeting a capitalisation of $500 million by 2020.

“This appointment is in line with ANAROCK's highly technology-driven orientation and business model for its residential advisory services," said Puri, chairman, ANAROCK, in a statement. According to him, the online real estate business in India is in a “fledging state” and has thus far not been able to emulate the success of ecommerce for consumer durables and services. “We intend to change that, and Rahul Yadav's experience in harnessing the consumer housing market via technology will add the key element,” he added.

Yadav, who co-founded Housing.com that saw marquee investors, including Japan’s Softbank, pour money into the venture, stepped down as CEO amid controversies. Upon leaving, he set up data analytics firm Intelligence Interfaces in September 2016, but wound down the business within six months. Before his ANAROCK appointment, he briefly advised the Lodha group. "I consider my appointment as chief product and technology officer at ANAROCK Property Consultants the logical next step in my career, and it is of course a complete privilege to work with an outstanding industry leader like Anuj Puri,” said Yadav.

According to Puri, Indian residential buyers and investors will not embrace an ecommerce model of property purchase unless they get a “seamless experience” from online property selection to offline advisory and transaction closure. Through ANANROCK and now Yadav’s appointment, he hopes to bridge that gap. “The cutting-edge and highly consumer-focussed technology platform and support infrastructure we will build here will bring in a complete transformation of the residential property business,” he said.