ET Bureau BENGALURU: Stayzilla has roped in former Twitter employee and director Pankaj Gupta as chief product officer and president of technology, as the startup looks to double the listings on its platform to over 1 lakh in the next one year by building a community around homestays and alternative stays.
San Francisco-based Gupta, a Stanford PhD in computer science who was one of the first 30 employees of Twitter, will move to work in the Bengaluru office of Stayzilla in the coming weeks. Gupta will help build a technology platform and product around the community at Stayzilla, which is backed by venture capital firms such as Matrix Partners India and Nexus Venture Partners.
The high-profile hiring of Gupta comes at a time when it is likely to face increasing competition from US-based Airbnb’s more aggressive expansion plans in India.
“Pankaj brings with him years of experience in leading product and technology for a platform built around a huge community. With Stayzilla's growth in homestays and community-based hosting, we could not have found a better person or time for him to lead our product and technology," said Yogendra Vasupal, cofounder and CEO, Stayzilla.
Stayzilla has been increasing focus on home and alternative stays, which now contributes to over 40% of the bookings compared to 6% last September. Vasupal said that soon this will become majority of the business, and the platform is also trying to match guests with hosts based on interests such as vocation, music and leisure activities. That’s where Gupta is expected to help Stayzilla build a community.
Gupta was the co-inventor of the “Who to Follow” recommendation product on Twitter, holding various technology-related roles before stepping down as senior staff data scientist and products in 2014.
Since then he has been consulting and making angel investments in Silicon Valley startups such as Localytics.
Before Twitter, Gupta had founded two startups, including vertical Indian music search engine Phulki which was acquired by music streaming service Saavn. Gupta won the Arthur Samuel award for the best PhD dissertation from Stanford, and also stood first in computer science at IIT-Delhi. He has published more than 30 papers and holds more than 20 patents.
The move to hire Gupta by Stayzilla underlines that hiring top technology talent from Silicon Valley continues to be in vogue for Indian startups. Recent exits from Flipkart by former Google executive Punit Soni, one of the most highprofile hires from Silicon Valley made by an Indian internet company, had led to questions about culture issues in going for such expensive hires.
But Vasupal, who had multiple and detailed interviews with 10 candidates before finalising Gupta, asserted that hiring from overseas for specific roles is a necessity. “There are a very limited number of companies which have built a platform around communities, and we have been searching for candidates for the last one year, but finally had to look outside,” said Vasupal.
San Francisco-based Gupta, a Stanford PhD in computer science who was one of the first 30 employees of Twitter, will move to work in the Bengaluru office of Stayzilla in the coming weeks. Gupta will help build a technology platform and product around the community at Stayzilla, which is backed by venture capital firms such as Matrix Partners India and Nexus Venture Partners.
The high-profile hiring of Gupta comes at a time when it is likely to face increasing competition from US-based Airbnb’s more aggressive expansion plans in India.
“Pankaj brings with him years of experience in leading product and technology for a platform built around a huge community. With Stayzilla's growth in homestays and community-based hosting, we could not have found a better person or time for him to lead our product and technology," said Yogendra Vasupal, cofounder and CEO, Stayzilla.
Stayzilla has been increasing focus on home and alternative stays, which now contributes to over 40% of the bookings compared to 6% last September. Vasupal said that soon this will become majority of the business, and the platform is also trying to match guests with hosts based on interests such as vocation, music and leisure activities. That’s where Gupta is expected to help Stayzilla build a community.
Gupta was the co-inventor of the “Who to Follow” recommendation product on Twitter, holding various technology-related roles before stepping down as senior staff data scientist and products in 2014.
Since then he has been consulting and making angel investments in Silicon Valley startups such as Localytics.
Before Twitter, Gupta had founded two startups, including vertical Indian music search engine Phulki which was acquired by music streaming service Saavn. Gupta won the Arthur Samuel award for the best PhD dissertation from Stanford, and also stood first in computer science at IIT-Delhi. He has published more than 30 papers and holds more than 20 patents.
The move to hire Gupta by Stayzilla underlines that hiring top technology talent from Silicon Valley continues to be in vogue for Indian startups. Recent exits from Flipkart by former Google executive Punit Soni, one of the most highprofile hires from Silicon Valley made by an Indian internet company, had led to questions about culture issues in going for such expensive hires.
But Vasupal, who had multiple and detailed interviews with 10 candidates before finalising Gupta, asserted that hiring from overseas for specific roles is a necessity. “There are a very limited number of companies which have built a platform around communities, and we have been searching for candidates for the last one year, but finally had to look outside,” said Vasupal.
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