PropertyGuru’s founding CEO steps down

From left: Jani Rautiainen, Steve Melhuish, Hari Krishnan

PropertyGuru CEO and co-founder Steve Melhuish has stepped down. He will assume the role of vice-chairman. Succeeding him is Hari Krishnan, who joined the company as president and chief business officer in January 2016.

Hari was identified as a potential CEO since 2015, according to the press release. He was previously LinkedIn’s vice president for Asia Pacific and Japan.

PropertyGuru is the dominant property site in Singapore, and has a strong presence in Southeast Asia. Its chief rival is iProperty, founded by career entrepreneur Patrick Grove.

IProperty was sold to a property portal group for US$534 million. It was then delisted.

The last publicly disclosed financial results showed that iProperty had A$15.1 million (US$11.5 million) in revenue and an EBITDA of A$700,000 (US$534,000) in the first half of 2015.

PropertyGuru itself has raised US$183 million in known funding. The group claims to serve 16 million users and generate 500,000 enquiries a month, driving US$15 billion in annual transactions. Its bottom line isn’t known as it’s a private company.

Steve had told Tech in Asia that the group planned to list on the stock market, but it seems those plans may have been pushed back.

The former CEO has been with PropertyGuru for 10 years. As vice-chairman, he will work on “longer-term strategy, business growth, and key client relationships,” according to the release.

Headquartered in Singapore, PropertyGuru also serves Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

Tech in Asia has reached out to PropertyGuru with enquiries.