BackSarvaloka Services acquires start-up MyWash Technologies
The acquisition aims to help Housejoy scale to 10,000 laundry services per day over the next year from 1,000 at present
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Bengaluru: Sarvaloka Services On-call Pvt. Ltd which owns on-demand home services provider Housejoy, said it has acquired dry cleaning and laundry start-up MyWash Technologies Pvt. Ltd for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition aims to help Housejoy scale to 10,000 laundry services per day over the next year from around 1,000 at present.
This is the first acquisition by the company after it raised ₹ 150 crore in Series B funding in December led by e-commerce major Amazon India, Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Ru-Net Technology Partners and Matrix partners.
“This will help augment what we have in terms of our operational knowledge, what we have learnt and complement that with this (MyWash) team and essentially helping us scale laundry rapidly," Housejoy CEO Saran Chatterjee said in an interview.
Ten people from the core team of MyWash will join Housejoy but will not be part of the board, Chatterjee said. MyWash had a total of around 20 members which includes the co-founders, technical and managerial team and around 200 delivery personnel on payroll, according to Silus Chintapalli, co-founder of MyWash.
Housejoy did not disclose the terms of the acquisition but said that in terms of equity, the deal was favourable to the entrepreneurs of MyWash.
“This is the best opportunity for the team to scale our vision of being the number 1 laundry player in the country," Raghu Bharat, co-founder of MyWash, said in a statement.
The announcement comes at a time when the relatively young local and home services companies in India are looking to consolidate market share with a wave of acquisitions to expand to new cities and category of services.
Zimmber (Rejuvenate Solutions Pvt. Ltd) acquired Dhulai, a laundry services firm while Taskbob (Crenovative Ideas Pvt. Ltd) acquired Zepper Services Pvt. Ltd in November 2015. Others such as Timesaverz Dotcom Pvt. Ltd are in talks with category-focused players to expand its services and enter new cities.
“Any category which is relevant to what we are doing and gives us access to something unique we would absolutely consider," Chatterjee said of its acquisition strategy to further consolidate its position.
There are over 100 home services companies in India comprising full stack and category specific players providing services such as laundry, home cleaning, plumbers, wedding planners, photographers and fitness instructors.
Apart from Housejoy, the other two most well-funded local services companies include UrbanClap Technologies Pvt. Ltd which raised $25 million in November, taking its total to over $36 million so far and Quikr India Pvt. Ltd which is looking to invest ₹ 250 crore into QuikrServices, its local services vertical.
Other players such as LocalOye (Imma Web Pvt. Ltd), Zimmber, UrbanPro (Thinkvidya Learning Pvt. Ltd), Doormint (BlackCotton Solutions Pvt Ltd), TimeSaverz and Taskbob (Crenovative Ideas Pvt Ltd) have cumulatively raised over $15 million in recent months.
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