Hyderabad-based home cleaning startup SBricks acquires Melway

​Hybrid on-demand home cleaning and laundry player SBricks has acquired Melway, a Hyderabad-based facility management and hands-on services player for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will bring in 200 home cleaning professionals to the SBricks fold, along with enhancing brand equity and clientele portfolio.

Nithin Reddy, Founder and CEO, Sbricks, said, “Melway adds tremendous synergy to our growth plans in home cleaning services business that is growing at a rapid pace. This acquisition will surely help SBricks boost its presence in home cleaning space and fast-forward customer base.”

He adds that a hybrid model is the way forward in the sector and that he wanted to take the lead by consolidating his business through acquisitions and building the platform’s brand in the market.  The home cleaning services will grow rapidly in the coming years and the best way to go forward is to leverage this potential and join forces rather than having a turf war. “To consolidate our market strength and to accelerate our customer penetration, we will continue to seek out such deals, with future acquisitions,” he added.

Founded in 2015, SBricks offers 40 services with its list of pre-approved, carefully screened service providers for home maintenance, and will soon launch its facility management services. It clocks 125 orders per day and expects to touch the 300-orders-per-day mark in the next few months. Now, it also has access to 6,000 service touch points that Melway brings to its table. The platform will retain the four-year-old Melway trade name and its existing team structure will remain intact. Sbricks will support the Melway and Sbricks joint operations through strategic investments and inducing consumer-relevant newer cleaning services.

The bootstrapped startup is upbeat about its consumer services growth as well. Currently, SBricks boasts a client roster of over 5,000and is expecting to touch 10,000 in the next six months. Clients include Big Cinemas, Asian Movies chain besides large gated communities, individual homes and small apartment blocks in the Hyderabad region.

The immediate focus of the company is to grow with its current territories in Hyderabad and then move on to newer cities across south India and then rest of the country. The company has expanded to five cities: Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Vishakhapatnam, Kochi and Tirupati, since going live in April 2015 in Hyderabad.

Sbricks, through its investment banker Consark, a boutique advisory services firm, is in early stages of discussions with two international venture capital firms for investment to build its footprint in India in the near term.

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According to a rough estimate, the Indian home services space is estimated to be around $ seven to eight billion. According to KPMG reports, unorganised laundry in India is a Rs 2.2-lakh crore opportunity and is set to grow even bigger as the pool of 12 million online consumers from metro cities will continue to increase at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20 per cent.

This acquisition is the harbinger of impending consolidation in the on-demand home service segment.

In the last month, home service and laundry service was under the limelight with similar kind of acquisitions in the sector. In November, laundry service app Wassup acquired Mumbai-based Chamak, while Taskbob acquired Bengaluru-based Zepper.

With Amazon investing in home services provider Housejoy and companies like Naspers set to enter the segment, the market will be controlled by just a few.

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