CommonFloor acqui-hires Bakfy, won't invest in college gossip app

CommonFloor, a real estate listing website, has acqui-hired the Bangalore-based start-up, Bakfy, according to media reports. Founded by Ashutosh Garg (26), Niranjan Bala (34) and Rajesh Eswarlal (25), Bakfy’s app shares campus gossip anonymously and is popular among college goers. The company was founded a year ago. Acqui-hire means the deal is not a buyout of the company, but an acquisition of the talents of the founders. However, the deal size has not been disclosed. Sumit Jain, co-founder and CEO of CommonFloor, has said that what he liked about Bakfy was the founders’ work to create “a mobile-only anonymous social network”. [caption id=“attachment_2033755” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Screengrab from the Bakfy website[/caption] “We are bullish on mobile and the Bakfy team brings proven capability of scaling up a mobile-only social network in India, which is quite unique,” Jain has been quoted as saying in The Times of India. Bakfy’s app is open to all college campuses. As of October, the app was live in more than 40 colleges in the country and had more than 4,000 users, according to this interview. “Bakfy chose to be acquired by CommonFloor because of the opportunity in the real estate space, which is immense,” Garg of Bakfy has been quoted as saying in a report in The Economic Times. “We are super excited to be part of this amazing company and look forward to build some kick ass products,” the founders have noted on Bakfy website. Mentors and incubators of Bakfy are also all praise for the three young technology grads. “This team will provide a nice boost to CommonFloor’s mobile experience in the coming months…,” Ravi Gururaj, chairman of Nasscom Product Council, has been quoted as saying in the ET report. Bakfy was mentored and incubated by Nasscom’s 10,000 Start-ups initiative. However, the app is unlikely to see any further investments as it is not part of the deal, said the ToI report.