After 3 years of hiatus, Housejoy raises $3.24 Mn bridge round led by Matrix

The beginning of December has brought a wave of funds in service marketplace platforms in India. After UrbanClap raising $50 million at a staggering half a billion USD valuation, Housejoy raised about $3.24 million fresh capital.

As per the latest RoC filings by Housejoy, the company has issued a Series B1 preference shares round to Matrix Partners India and other existing investors.

While Matrix infused $1.34 million, Vertex Ventures, RTP Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Sama Capital put in about $1.58 million in the home service and beauty marketplace. Serial entrepreneur and promoter of the company Ganesh Krishnan also added Rs 2.35 crore to firm’s preference capital in a personal capacity.

This is the first funding in the company after three years. The last time the company had raised $23 million Series B round in December 2015 led by Vertex, Amazon and Matrix.

Importantly, Amazon did not participate in the current round.

Previously, it raised $4 million Series A round in 2015 led by Matrix. Till now the company has raised approximately $30 million in total.

Struggling to raise funds and compete against mighty UrbanClap, the Bengaluru-based company had also fired 40 people in May this year across mid-management functions like marketing, tech, and operations.

If we look at Steadview-backed UrbanClap, the funds seem largely small. The Series D round for Abhiraj Singh Bhal-led firm alone is $20 million more than Housejoy’s total fundings raised till date.

The financial performance of Housejoy in FY18 also showed a sluggish growth of 19 per cent in revenue, which stood at Rs 37.8 crore, while losses shrunk by 30 per cent to Rs 49.5 crore.

In this regard as well, UrbanClap had shown tremendous improvement in its financials in the last financial year. The company’s revenue took a 3.2X jump in FY18, going up from Rs 16.54 crore to Rs 53.48 crore.

However, the Gurugram-headquartered firm managed to control its losses only by 15.92 per cent to Rs 56.49 crore in FY18.

For Housejoy, UrbanClap is the largest competitor apart from other other smaller players like Timesaverz and Mr. Right. Since UrbanClap had raised massive fund and widened the gap with Housejoy, the latter's future doesn't seem promising for sure.