News Corp-backed PropTiger has merged with Housing.com to become a joint venture with an additional investment of $55 million which includes $50 million from REA Group Limited and an affiliate of SoftBank Group Corp, investing $5 million. It is worth noting that News Corp remains the largest shareholder of PropTiger with a share of 30%, and also owns 61.6% of REA Group. Representatives of REA and SoftBank will join the board of the joint entity, which will continue to be chaired by a News Corp representative. Henry Ruiz, Chief Digital Officer, REA Group, Simon Barnett, Sales Director, News Corp and Jonathan Bullock, MD, SoftBank Group International will join Raju Narisetti (chair), Ravi Adusumalli from SAIF Partners and Prashanth Prakash from Accel Partners as investor directors on the board of the joint entity. Though the release talks about a merger, it is not clear if it is only a merger or is also an acquisition since the name of this joint venture is not known. It is also not clear if Housing.com will continue to exist as an independent entity like Makaan.com. We have written to the organisation for clarification on both. The company added the joint entity between PropTiger and Housing.com 'will draw on the strengths of PropTiger, Housing.com and Makaan.com.' Makaan.com was acquired by PropTiger in 2015. What happens to Team Housing.com? Dhruv Agarwala, co-founder and CEO of PropTiger, will serve as CEO of the joint entity while Jason Kothari, CEO of Housing.com has quit the organisation. However the release states that he…
