Urban Company FY20 revenue jumps 103% led by demand in beauty and wellness

Bengaluru: Home services startup Urban Company, formerly UrbanClap, has reported a 103% year-on-year rise in revenue to ₹216 crore in 2019-2020 on account of demand in its beauty and wellness vertical.

The services startup had reported ₹106 crore of revenue and a loss of ₹67 crore in FY19. The company didn't disclose net profit/loss figures for FY20 in its financials on Tuesday.

The net booking value of all transactions processed through the Urban Company platform grew 138% to ₹918 crore in FY20 compared with the corresponding period a year ago.

Urban Company said beauty and wellness vertical contributed to approximately 55% of its revenues in FY20. However, this segment remained largely suspended on the platform after a nationwide lockdown was imposed in late March.

After lockdown measures were eased in several districts since 4 May, Urban Company has seen demand picking up for home-based salon services, and for appliance repair and home maintenance services.

Abhiraj Bhal, chief executive, Urban Company said the startup already has over 120,000 users on wait list who have requested at-home salon and beauty services. But it currently operates these services only in non-containment zones. Its biggest markets including metro cities like Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, are currently containment zones, and hence the business disruption is expected to have an impact on future revenues of the startup.

“Some of our home repairs and maintenance services were allowed during the lockdown. But now this is being opened up in all orange and green zones. During the lockdown, home-based beauty and wellness services were completely suspended, but we are now seeing a huge spike in demand for beauty services and haircut services after we launched it in orange and green zones,” said Bhal.

He added that the company is in discussion with salon and wellness outlets to help them reach customers and provide salon services at home.

“We have already started working with some salons in India and UAE. Consumers also feel that getting salon services at the safety of their homes is much safer than physically going to a salon to avoid congregations and large crowds,” said Bahl.

Urban Company had also stepped up marketing and promotions on its app and the website mostly focused on safety precaution that the startup has taken to reduce the risk of infection. It has implemented standard safety protocols including the usage of masks and gloves, mandatory use of the Aarogya Setu app, daily temperature checks, and sanitization of all tools before the service.

Launched in 2014 in Delhi by Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, the startup is currently present in 20 cities in India, and had expanded previously into four international markets including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, and Singapore. Prior to the lockdown, Urban Company had around 25,000 trained professionals across various verticals.

Urban Company competes with other online home services firms such as Amazon-backed Housejoy in Bengaluru, Zimmber, which was acquired by classifieds firm Quikr, and Mumbai-based Timesaverz.