Snapdeal appoints Housing's Jason Kothari to head strategy, investments

He will also overlook raising capital, managing portfolio companies and strategic partnerships

Softbank-backed Snapdeal has appointed Jason Kothari, CEO of Housing.com, as its new chief strategy and investment officer, as it looks to make a comeback in India's fast growing e-commerce market.

Kothari was elevated as CEO of Housing (another Softbank portfolio company) in November 2015, after the board of directors unanimously voted him into the role. He replaced co-founder and former CEO Rahul Yadav who had been sacked by investors and turned around the company which was merged on Tuesday with NewsCorp backed PropTiger.

Housing's revenue grew four times, while expenses reduced by 70 per cent in the 13 months that Kothari led the company. He also convinced Softbank to invest a further $20 million in the company before leading to its sale.

At Snapdeal, Kothari will head strategy, apart from overlooking raising capital, managing portfolio companies and strategic partnerships. His appointment comes at a time when Snapdeal has struggled to keep up with larger rivals Flipkart and Amazon, and its subsidiary Freecharge continues to lag to Paytm.

"Jason is a strong business leader and entrepreneur who has already been the CEO of two successful companies," said Kunal Bahl, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal.

Snapdeal lost the second spot in India's e-commerce market to global rival Amazon last year, after the US company began aggressively investing in India. Even market leader Flipkart was faced with stalling growth, but has remained in the top spot after it employed some cut throat cost cutting measures.

Experts say that India's online shopping market has become a two-horse race. Amazon has so far committed to investing $5 billion into the Indian market, with investors in Snapdeal and Flipkart getting spooked to continue pumping money into both the local firms.

Investor Softbank marked down the value of its stocks in Snapdeal and Ola in the six months that ended September 2016. The Japanese firm showed a $550 million loss, half of which it said was due to the fluctuation in the value of the Yen, while the other half was on hand of the depreciating share value in its two portfolio companies.