Home services provider Zimmber raises $2 mn from Omidyar Network, others

A representative from Omidyar Network will join the company’s board.

The development comes barely three weeks after the company raised $400,000 from senior executives of mobile advertising firm InMobi, including co-founders Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena and Amit Gupta. Zimmber counts Praveen Sinha, co-founder of online shopping website Jabong, among its early backers. It had earlier raised an undisclosed amount from Sinha and senior executives of shopping portal Flipkart and headhunter Egon Zehnder.

The funds will be used to expand the business beyond Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune to cover the entire National Capital Region and Navi Mumbai. Significant investments will be made to grow the 70-member team as the company plans to enter 37 new cities and expand to 20 categories from the present nine by early 2016.

“We will also look for an acquisition in the home cleaning space," said chief executive and co-founder Anubhab Goel.

Zimmber will also explore categories that attract repeat users. The company had recently acquired Dhulai, a Mumbai-based start-up that provides laundry services, a segment which ensures high repeat rate. “Our driver-on-demand has also picked up in Mumbai. We will launch appliances next."

The company will close a Series A round of $10-15 million in two months, Goel added.

In an attempt to differentiate itself from rivals such as UrbanClap and LocalOye, Zimmber is working towards ensuring a loyal base of service providers on its platform. The company plans to leverage its association with Omidyar Networks and Pai to tie up with non-banking financial institutions and schools to help the service personnel secure home loans and education for their children, an initiative that is likely to motivate them to continue their association with Zimmber instead of veering towards rivals.

Zimmber claims to have more than 400 service personnel on its platform and execute more than 150 jobs daily, charging service providers 15-20% of the total transaction value as commission.

The Mumbai-based company was launched in 2014 by Goel, Amit Kumar and Gaurav Shrivastava. It offers services across verticals such as air conditioner servicing, plumbing, electrical repair, pest control and painting and carpentry services among others.

The home services space has gained ample momentum of late, with investors like Tiger Global Management backing start-ups in the segment. Zimmber will be pitched against Tiger Global-backed LocalOye, which has so far raised $5 million, and UrbanClap, which has raised $11.6 million and counts Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal among early investors. A few of the other companies in this space to have raised institutional funding are UrbanPro, Taskbob, Qyk and Timesaverz.