India, May 8 -- What's in a name? In the case of Karishma Singh's beauty app Kult, the name is a premonition - it hints at the cult of personality or the figure in the background pulling the strings.

Of course, for anyone who has seen the journey of the Indian startup ecosystem up front through the past decade, this figure is anything but shadowy. Rahul Yadav, the spouse of Karishma Singh, is in the thick of things once again.

Yadav's gravity and tainted reputation after the Housing.com and Broker Network debacle pushed Kult far from its orbit into a catastrophic situation.

Even as Kult claimed a $20 Mn infusion supposedly from M3M family office and Venture Catalysts last week, Inc42's investigation has uncovered many gaps in the Kult ...