UrbanClap raises $25M Series B funding from Bessemer, SAIF, and Accel Partners

Services marketplace startup UrbanClap today announced that it had raised $25 million Series B round of funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners with participation from existing investors SAIF and Accel Partners. Earlier this year, UrbanClap had raised US$ 12 M across two rounds from SAIF and Accel Partners.

Founded by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, UrbanClap is positioning itself as a one-stop destination for trusted professional and home services. Currently, active in five cities -- Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Delhi NCR, users can book services through their website or mobile app. Some of the professional services offered include yoga instructors, photographers, make up professionals, interior designers, and tax consultants etc, while home services include electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and pest control etc.

Recommended read from April 2015: Backed by Snapdeal founders and others, UrbanClap builds m-commerce for services

Talking about the latest round and their growth metrics, Abhiraj, one of the Co-founders, said,

Today, we serve 5000 customer requests per day, and have built a base of 20,000+ service professionals. Today, UrbanClap sends them business worth US $200 million annually (current run rate), from small carpentry jobs worth Rs 200 to large interior designing assignments worth several lakhs. With this round of funding, we are well positioned to build a large company that Indians will love which will make their everyday lives easier.

Vishal Gupta, MD of Bessemer Venture Partners, said, “While the idea of UrbanClap is simple – helping customers discover and book trusted services on an app -- it takes a ton of technology led processes and supply side thinking to make it work so fast, that it creates customer and provider delight. We are impressed with how the team has aggressively built this mobile marketplace in a short period of time, and a capital efficient manner. As they launch city after city, they are creating micro-entrepreneurs across service categories.”

Sector overview and future plans

The local services market in India has an estimated market size of about $50 billion and is growing fast. Other startups operating in the same segment are Doormint, LocalOye, Zimmber, Taskbob, Housejoy, UrbanPro, TimeSaverz, Mr. Right, and TheMakeoverz etc.

Listing portals such as JustDial, Sulekha, YellowPages, Near.in; and providers such as Jack on Block, Hammer and Mop (which recently merged with Mr. Homecare) also operate in the same segment indirectly.

LocalOye had raised $5 million from Tiger Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners in April this year. Taskbob recently acquired Zepper and had earlier raised $1.2 million funding from Orios, Mayfield and others, Doormint raised $3M led by Helion Ventures and Kalaari Capital in August 2015, while Timesaverz had raised an angel investment in October 2014.

Headquartered in Gurgaon, UrbanClap offers services in 75+ categories across five cities and the company plans to extend its offering to 25 cities and 100+ categories over the next one year. Further, this round will be utilized to increase the team size from 300 to about 600. Abhiraj, Co-founder of UrbanClap, said,

We will use these funds to further strengthen our leadership position in the space and expand across all major cities in India. By the same time next year, we aim to have over 200,000 professionals on the platform and serve over 100,000 customers every day.

YourStory take

With rising incomes and the emergence of nuclear families across major cities there is a big need for a home services marketplace to cater to diverse needs.

In the current scenario, consumers don’t mind paying a premium for home services in case of emergencies or when their regular household help doesn’t show up. Same goes for the professional services market too. Companies or individuals sometimes need to hire professional help on short notice or in some cases do not have any personal references or contacts to reach out to.

With a strong team and firm base across five major Indian cities, UrbanClap is already working at considerable scale. It will be interesting to see how they execute their plans and scale up even further to 25 cities by the end of 2016.

Website: www.urbanclap.com