Last week Housing.com’s co-founder was fired. This week its website was hacked for several hours with the message “Yes! We will solve real estate, but 10x better with ‘The Chief Architect’” being displayed on its home page.

The portal’s home page also tagged Rahul Yadav (former co-founder). It further said: “We’ve achieved a lot in the last three years, but the game has just begun. Yet, we are hungry for all! :)”. It ended with portal’s catch-line “#LookUp”. However, the company, whose mobile app was running without any glitch, was able to fix its website late in the evening.

While there were allegations on social media that 26-year-old Yadav could have had something to do with the hacking, others were of the view that it was just another “marketing gimmick” by the company, which did not give out any official statement on why the website was down.

The outrage on Twitter led to Rahul Yadav updating his Facebook status saying he had no role in the episode. However, Yadav, known for pulling no punches, said: “I would have designed it better. #notinvolved #lovethetechteam.”

Sanjay Mehta, a serial investor and a tech-entrepreneur, said hacking is a cyber-crime and an offender can receive three years of rigorous imprisonment. “I don’t think Rahul would have done this, but maybe some die-hard Rahul fan or some employees.”

Yadav, a dropout from IIT Bombay, was asked to leave Housing.com, a company he built along with 11 other batchmates, for his “unruly and irrational” behaviour with investors and the media.

Housing.com has so far received over $100 million from investors such as SoftBank, Helion Ventures, Nexus and Qualcomm Ventures, taking its valuation to about ₹1,500 crore. Yadav had made headlines in the past few months with quirky statements and a letter to Sequoia India’s head Shailendra Singh, accusing him of poaching employees.

Thereafter, Yadav resigned but soon withdrew his resignation. This was followed by high drama, when Yadav gave away all his shares, worth ₹200 crore, to employees. This was seen as a ‘marketing stunt’ by several industry players, who also called Yadav “insane” and “immature”.

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