In a rebranding exercise, home services startup UrbanClap on Thursday said it will now be known as Urban Company as it repositions itself into seven key verticals capturing the company’s ambition to become a horizontal gig marketplace and expand its global footprint to Australia and Singapore.
“We now have a bouquet of services so it was important to have a mother brand or an umbrella brand which can house all these sub brands. Urban Company will be our brand forever for all markets and geographies now,” said Abhiraj Bhal, co-founder and CEO Urban Company in an interview to Mint.
The seven verticals comprise services such as beauty, spa, grooming, repairs, cleaning, painting, and fitness and yoga, that are offered through its mobile app and website.
Launched in 2014 in Delhi by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, the startup has expanded its operations to 17 Indian cities - Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Vadodara and Visakhapatnam - and four international markets - Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and Singapore. The company launched its Singapore operations about 10 days ago.
Currently, Urban Company has an army of 25,000 plus trained professionals across various verticals. "We work closely with our service partners, helping them with up-skilling, financing, insurance, product procurement etc., transforming them into micro-service entrepreneurs,” said Bhal.
Training is a big focus area of the company, and Bahl said it employs about 100 full time trainers and have more than 50 training centers, with training certified by the government’s National Skill Development Corporation.
In August, the company raised $75 million in a Series E round led by US-based investment fund Tiger Global Management, valuing the startup at around $935 million. In total, the Gurugram-based firm has raised about $180 million from investors including SAIF Partners, Accel, Steadview Capital, and VY Capital.
Of the $180 million, the company has given back around $45 million to existing investors, angel investors, shareholders and employees. “We have almost $100 million in the bank, our unit economics are strong, we are making forward looking investments in training, branding, selection and our India business is on the path to profitability,” added Bahl.
According to market experts, what has worked for Urban Clap is the high quality of service they provide, the focus on value, standard pricing, and the convenience that it offers to the customers.
In FY19, UrbanClap claimed to have completed around 3.3 million service orders, a sharp rise from around 1.2 million service orders in FY18. Gross transaction value (GTV) of all orders in the last financial year jumped to ₹400 crore from a GTV of ₹130 crore in FY18. GTV represents aggregate spends of a company’s customers in a particular financial period, according to a Mint report.
The online home services segment includes companies such as Amazon-backed Housejoy in Bengaluru, Zimmber, which was acquired by classifieds firm Quikr, and Mumbai-based Timesaverz.
Catch all the Business News , Corporate news , Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.