Vishal Garg who fired 900 people on Zoom sees miserable public market debut

SAN FRANCISCO: Embattled online mortgage lender Better.com, a company run by Indian-origin CEO Vishal Garg saw his stock plummeting miserable after making its public market debut.

Once valued at $7.7 billion, Garg’s SoftBank-backed company faced a harrowing time as it went public via a SPAC merger.

The stock, which had been trading at $17.44, plummeted 94 per cent to $1.15 last week.

The digital mortgage lender made its public debut on August 24 and the stock wasn’t exactly a hit with public investors.

Better.com had planned to go public at a $7.7 billion valuation two years ago.

Now, Better.com’s market cap is hovering around just $19.14 million.

Better.com is facing “shrinking revenue and haemorrhaging cash following an Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry and the dismissal of 7,000 employees over the past two years”, reports Forbes.

A July prospectus filed with the SEC, the company wrote that its management and accounting firm had expressed doubts about the company’s “ability to continue as a going concern".

In June, Garg reportedly laid off its real estate team and shut down the unit.

The company is said to be shifting from an in-house agent model to a partnership agent model, TechCrunch reported.

In December 2021, Garg laid off nearly 900 employees over a Zoom call that created a furore.