UrbanClap founders commit $15 Mn investment as part of Series D round

Founders often increase their stake for retaining control in the firm. Recently, Ola’s co-founders- Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati had poured in about Rs 32 lakh for 3,22,387 shares. Usually, founders keep putting small amounts at various stages, however, UrbanClap co-founders have surprised everyone by promising Rs 107 crore to the company as part of a Series D round.

According to RoC filings with Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Abhiraj Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan are investing Rs 35.66 crore each in UrbanClap in installments. The trio will be picking up partly paid 17,292 shares (5,764 each) in their brainchild. Importantly, they will be paying premium of Rs 61,862 per share that account for a nominal value of Re 1.

The first installment of this transaction was merely worth Rs 2,882 for each of the co-founder.

Bhal told Entrackr that this investment had been in the pipeline for years and it was decided that the company would make it a part of the company’s recent Series D round. “We believed in the future of the company and wanted to make our own investment contributions, but since we don’t have Rs 110 crore right now in our pockets, we decided to issue these shared on Series D valuation on a partly paid basis.”

Six months ago, the company had raised a $50 million Series D round in December 2018. Following the round, it also bought $2-2.5 million worth stocks from existing and former employees. UrbanClap was valued $441 million in the financing round led by Steadview Capital.

This valuation had gone down to $340 million after a Rs 1.6 crore worth downround poured in by Kalyan Krishnamurthy in April this year. With the current infusion, the valuation stands at $459 million - back to being at par with the round.

Announcing its financial performance in FY19, the Gurugram-based firm claimed a GMV of Rs 400 crore. The firm also marked 2.2X jump in revenue to Rs 116 crore from in FY19 from Rs 53.48 crore revenue in FY18.