Stayzilla founder arrested on fraud charges; other startup founders come on his support sensing foul play

Stayzilla founder and Chief Executive Officer Yogendra Vasupal has been arrested by Chennai police under charges of fraud. Jigsaw Advertising, a first with which Stayzilla has had relations in the past, has slapped charges of defrauding against the company causing Vasupal’s arrest. However, before the arrest, he posted an account of harassment he was undergoing due to his politically influential landlord and a media agency the company had a dispute with. He had conveyed that he is under duress due to both the issues. He said that “My landlord demanded immediate payment for which he had accepted a post-dated cheque, the landlord then got violent and assaulted the admin staff threatening to kill him with the revolver in his car”. And regarding the media house, he said that “I don’t personally owe anybody money and I am wondering how can they get confused on such a basic matter as this was a clear civil case. I also pointed out that we have been asking the other company to take it to court if they felt they were wronged as we felt within our right”.

The startup, started in 2015, recently shut down its operations to rethink its business strategy, and had asked for some time from the investors to streamline the business. It has raised ~$34 million of funding till now in 4 rounds from investors such as Matrix Partners India and Nexus Ventures Partners among others.