Will Mukesh Ambani bet on Rahul Yadav’s new venture?

MUMBAI: Rahul Yadav, founder and former CEO of realty portal Housing.com, who has acquired the image of the bad boy of Indian startups, is scheduled to meet India's richest man Mukesh Ambani, chairman of energy-to-retail conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL), a post on his Facebook account that earned him 4,300 likes in less than 20 hours revealed.

Rahul didn't mention the context of his meeting with the billionaire businessman but insiders suggest that it relates to the launch of his new venture. He was ousted from Housing.com by its board on July 1 allegedly over his behaviour with investors and the media.

Without giving any reasons for the meeting, Rahul said in his post: "The most exciting day of my life was IIT-JEE result. Getting similar and strong awesome feelings again for the upcoming meeting with Mukesh Ambani. Confession: he's my hero!"

Rahul is scheduled to launch a new startup soon and has reportedly got funding from Flipkart's Sachin and Binny Bansal and Paytm's Vijay Shekhar Sharma.

When contacted, Rahul declined to comment on his new venture or the context of his meeting with Ambani, who is scheduled to launch the fourth generation (4G) bundled voice and data services in December.

Housing.com's chief of staff Azeem Zainulbhai, chief marketing officer Pratik Seal and chief design officer Suvonil Chatterjee have reportedly left the realty portal to join the company being set up by Rahul.

Azeem's father Adil Zainulbhai serves as an independent director on the board of RIL. An RIL spokesperson declined to comment on the proposed meeting between Ambani and Rahul.

Though it's not yet clear what Rahul's new venture will be about, in a Facebook post on July 15, he had said: "I'll be back...this time with 100x... [10x of last formula (10x)]... 30 days to go... Is the world ready?"