Finally, Stayzilla Founder Yogendra Vasupal gets out of jail after 30 days

An advertising firm charged him for non-payment of dues worth $263,000, reports Tech in Asia

Yogendra Vasupal, co-founder and CEO of Stayzilla, which shut down a couple of months ago, got out of jail yesterday. He had been granted bail a couple of days earlier on a surety bond of $62,000 deposited with the Madras High Court in Chennai.

Stayzilla was India’s largest Airbnb-style site until it was forced to shut down as it wasn’t able to raise another funding round in time. In the financial year ending March 2016, Stayzilla had losses of $14 million against a revenue of $2 million.

After the shutdown, an advertising firm in Chennai took Stayzilla’s founders to court on alleged non-payment of dues to the tune of $263,000 as well as intimidation when the payment was demanded. Yogendra, or Yogi as he is known, was then arrested. In granting bail, the judge said the case would be treated as a civil suit.

The tech startup community rallied behind the founder after his arrest, forrming a #HelpYogi group. Nearly 200 founders signed a letter to ministers and bureaucrats asking for Yogi’s release and a fair trial. Yesterday evening, the #HelpYogi group shared a photo of Yogendra with his family and friends after his release from jail. They said the judge had observed it was a “business transaction dispute between two companies,” and not a criminal case.

A HelpYogi website also popped up, endorsed by top mentors in the industry like Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys and Axilor Ventures, Sharad Sharma, co-founder of nonprofit think-tank iSpirt, and Ravi Gururaj of tech industry body Nasscom.

Yogi’s troubles come amidst a downturn in fortunes in India’s start-up industry, undoing the funding boom times in 2014 and 2015. 

This is an excerpt from the article published on Tech In Asia. You can read the full article here