Employees unpaid, company rents Taj Land’s End boardroom for ₹80K a day

Rahul Yadav, the founder of Broker Network (operated by 4B Networks), a Prop-Tech company, reportedly maintained a luxurious lifestyle even as employees of the firm were left unpaid for several months. A startup news portal, Inc42 reported that Broker Network burnt over ₹280 crore in less than 18 months, while over 150 employees of the company remained unpaid since November last year.

“Yadav turned to his long-time employees to borrow personal loans to pay employee salaries. One such top-level employee lent close to ₹50 lakh to Yadav. He has filed a criminal complaint against Yadav,” the report noted.

Rahul Yadav’s entrepreneurial journey is bizarre. “It’s the kind of ‘resume’ that should have certainly attracted questions from Info Edge or other investors that backed him,” Inc42 notes. He starts companies, raises them, and then shuts them down.

Broker Network’s problems reportedly began in August 2022. The company sought the help of the firm “Info Edge” when it lacked funds to pay its employees. Info Edge then began asking questions to Yadav on the need to have 2K+ employees.

“Employees allege that roughly INR 9 Cr was being spent per month on the ‘home visits’ business and around INR 18 Cr to INR 20 Cr on the ‘home loans’ front. This amount includes operational and employee expenses we were told, so the monthly burn was just over INR 30 Cr by most estimates”, the report cites.

They also noted that all through this, Yadav maintained a luxurious lifestyle such as owning a Mercedes-Maybach and hiring a boardroom at the Taj Land’s End for Rs80,000 per day.

“Yadav told us luxuries such as his Maybach came from his earnings at Anarock,” and he was “also looking to buy a Bentley,” one employee was quoted as saying.