On-demand services marketplace UrbanClap raises $21 million

In a series C funding round, home services marketplace UrbanClap has raised $21 million from SAIF Partners, Accel Partners and series B investor Bessemer Venture Partners, led by Internet investment fund Vy Capital. Dubai-based Vy Capital, led by Alexander Tamas, is a major investor in online restaurant search firm, Zomato.

The latest raised fund will be used to expand its services in other cities.

“The new round of capital gives us the elbow room to invest in core areas of our business such as supply on-boarding at scale, training, building spares and parts inventory, etc. This will help us firmly cement our market leadership position” said UrbanClap Co-founder Abhiraj Bhal in a statement.

Launched in 2014, UrbanClap allows users to hire professionals for in-house beauty services, house cleaning and repair, yoga and fitness, and similar services in eight cities.

The firm claims 70 percent repeat customers on its platform. It gets most of its leads online through advertisement, word of mouth, and social media. It claims to get around 7000 daily requests and have 65000 professionals on its platform. Urbanclap is also planing to train professionals by opening training centres in the cities where it currently operates.

Among the eight cities- Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune, it is operating in Delhi is providing one-third of total requests UrbanClap is receiving. Other cities on radar are Jaipur, Chandigarh and Lucknow. It eyes to turn profitable by 2018.

With about $60 million of capital raised till date, including this round, UrbanClap has a leadership position in selling home services in satellite towns and metropolitan areas, the company stated. Earlier, UrbanClap had raised Rs20 crore in debt from Trifecta Capitalin in May. The company is also looking at a four-year road map to an initial public offering (IPO).

There are close to 100 home services and local services firms in India providing plumbers, electricians, wedding photographers, fitness instructors and tutors. These platform operators charge anything between 10-30% commission from service providers for every transaction.

The others competing in the space are Zimmber, Localoye, HouseJoy and Timesaverz. In May, Zimmber was acquired by classifieds firm Quikr.

Over the past few years, the sector has drawn attention of deep pocketed investors such as Amazon, Bessemer Venture Partners, Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Ru-Net Technology Partners, Matrix Partners, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners further validating the business model.