Unpaid dues? StayZilla co-founder arrested on cheating charge

It raised $34 mn in 4 funding rounds from Nexus Venture Partners and Matrix Partners, among others.

Yogendra Vasupal, co-founder of homestay aggregator StayZilla, which recently shut shop, has been arrested by the Chennai police after an advertising agency filed a cheating case against him over unpaid dues, his lawyer said.

Jigsaw Advertising filed a complaint under the penal code section on cheating. A bail application would be moved when Vasupal was produced before a magistrate, his advocate, Muzzafar, said. It is not clear how much StayZilla owes to Jigsaw and other vendors.

StayZilla decided to halt operations in February and said it was looking at a different business model. "This has been one of the toughest decisions I have taken so far but it is the right thing to do. The hardest part is saying goodbye to a perfect team that has accomplished a lot by putting homestays on the map of India," Vasupal had said, in a blog post last month.

The company has raised $34 million in four funding rounds from Nexus Venture Partners and Matrix Partners, among others.

On Tuesday evening, Sachit Singhi, who was one of the three founders, wrote in an e-mail to investors that “Yogi (Vasupal) is missing!!!” and that he was last been seen at the office of the commissioner of police in Chennai. “We need immediate help. Not sure what’s happening with Yogi and we have not known his whereabouts for last 3 hours for now. And, I think even I’ll be in custody soon,” Singhi wrote.

That e-mail, going around in social media, alleged one of the vendors, Aditya from Jigsaw Advertising, had been harassing them. 

He cited a series of events from December 2, 2016, to the day the promoters decided to shut the company.

He also alleged a local legislator asked them to meet and they’d been getting threatening calls. There was also allegedly a call from a local police station to Vasupal to come over, said Singhi, who could not be reached, his mobile phone being switched off. 

Other start-up founders expressed support after his twitter post.