Narasimha Jayakumar, COO & Business Head, e-commerce at HomeShop18 has quit the company and joined InfoEdge's online real estate business 99Acres as its chief business officer. While Jayakumar didn't pick up our calls, InfoEdge CEO Hitesh Oberoi has confirmed this to Medianama. Strangely, we had asked Jayakumar whether he was leaving HomeShop18 several times in the last quarter, since we had heard it from sources, however he had denied any such plans. Jayakumar was with HomeShop18 for nearly five years, having joined the company as VP (E-commerce) in June 2010. Prior to this, he was the business head (Travel and Local) for Google India for about two and a half years. He's also worked at Expedia, Galileo International and Tata Group. It's worth noting that HomeShop18 had scrapped its $75 million IPO from the New York Stock Exchange in November 2014, around seven months after the initial application and five months after Reliance acquired Network18. The company had also surprisingly stopped selling books online, which is believed to be among the higher margin categories for e-commerce. A Reliance Retail spokesperson had also told Economic Times in December that HomeShop18's Bangalore tech resources were transferred to serve the tech needs of Reliance's consumer businesses, while continuing to provide service to HomeShop18 as required. Sources had told the publication that around 100 employees were being transferred through this move. Note that Reliance Retail had earlier announced plans to enter the e-commerce segment this fiscal.
