Quick home services boom: VCs interested, but startups struggle to stand out

Currently, there are several companies catering to the market, including recently listed Urban Company, Snabbit, Pronto, and Broomees.

Snabbit, which started in Mumbai before expanding, and Pronto, which began operations in Gurugram, are currently raising money. The former is looking to raise between $100 and 120 million at a $500-550 million valuation. The latter, which first raised $2 million in May, is in talks to raise another round of funding, according to news website Moneycontrol.com.

While more of these companies are likely to appear in 2026 and secure funding, they remain largely similar, with investors focused primarily on the size and disruptive potential of the market.

In a business burdened by high customer acquisition costs, the core challenge lies in cracking unit economics. Yet shifting behaviour, particularly among younger generations entering the workforce, is what creates the market opportunity in the first place.

“There’s an entire generation looking for on-demand home services and willing to pay a premium for convenience," said Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner at IvyCap Ventures, which invested in Taskbob, a home services company back in 2016 and exited later. “Back in 2017, demand was still getting organized, and people weren’t sure whether a home-services business would work."

The home services market presents a substantial and growing opportunity. In 2024-25, the overall market was estimated at $60 billion, according to a RedSeer report. However, the online segment, where these new-age companies operate, remains small, at just under $500 million, though it is projected to grow at a steady 18-22% compound annual growth rate through 2029-30.

However, what's missing at the moment is how these companies will scale without a steady stream of capital, and whether this is a blip or whether consumer behaviour will actually change meaningfully in the long run.

The business model

The strategy these companies employ is simple: target microhubs. These are essentially high-density residential areas where there's already an ecosystem of house help available. Quick-home-services startups bank on the fact that when a household's part-time help for the day fails to show, they're there to step in.

“…our decision to launch a new market is driven by feasibility around how effectively our existing training centres can service new areas and how well we can cross-utilize our current sourcing and onboarding setup without breaking service levels," said Aayush Agarwal, founder of the quick-home-services company Snabbit.

Snabbit, founded in Mumbai in 2024, has expanded into Bengaluru and the National Capital Region (NCR).

Pronto, which started operations in May, quickly scaled its services out of Gurugram. In September, they added Noida, in October, they added Mumbai and Bengaluru, and in November, parts of Hyderabad, Pune, and Delhi.

Its founder, Anjali Sardana, said Bengaluru appears to have the highest growth potential among all the cities in which it is present. “We're launching in new micro markets every day. We're in 15 different micro markets at the moment, and we see this as an 80+ micro market potential city."

Urban Company, which began with beauty services before expanding into areas like plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair, and more, launched its Insta Help service in Mumbai in February and has since scaled it to other cities.

It is currently the only listed player in the home-services market, going public in September. Prior to its initial public offering, the Dutch investment group Prosus-backed company raised $376 million in funding, according to startup data platform Tracxn. Through the IPO, it raised around $215 million, listing at a 57% premium to its issue price of ₹103. The stock closed 2.7% higher on the Christmas Eve, giving the company a market capitalization of ₹18,542 crore on NSE.

In a 1 November letter to shareholders, as part of their September-quarter results, Urban Company said its Insta Help orders reached 460,000 in October. It reported an adjusted Ebitda loss of ₹35 crore for the quarter, primarily due to the Insta Help vertical alone incurring an adjusted Ebitda loss of ₹44 crore, attributed to “early-phase investments in supply onboarding, training and network densification".

It said it expected consolidated business to remain adjusted Ebitda loss-making for the next few quarters as it continues to invest in building Insta Help. It believes consumers will begin to opt for “organized, high-quality, and reliable housekeeping services delivered conveniently". Ebitda is short earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

Same same but different

However, a key question remains: What makes an Urban Company's Insta Help different from Snabbit experts or Pronto professionals?

According to Agarwal, it's speed. “Speed directly improves economics. To service a 60-minute job, if an expert spends 30 minutes travelling, the monetized-to-unmonetized time ratio is effectively 2:1."

His argument is that if time is effectively utilized, the company's service partners, called ‘experts’, have better earnings and lower fatigue, which in turn allows them to earn more. Currently, Snabbit experts can make between ₹ ₹10,000 to ₹40,000, depending on the hours worked.

Meanwhile, over at Pronto, Sardana said the quality of their work is what has helped them gain market share. “Quality is a massive factor in this market. When discounts eventually recede, that's what will matter. We've been able to maintain quality even as we've been scaling rapidly."

There's no real difference, according to experts, but it is a matter of time as they expand their portfolio of services. Snabbit, for example, is looking to expand into home cooks, elderly care, and nannies for children. Pronto is also expanding its portfolio, but declined to share specifics.

There are also issues related to customer acquisition that these companies need to address. “The largest cost centre will be the availability of talent itself. Cost of hiring and training these people will increase due to the new labour laws," said Amarjeet Makhija, markets advisory for startups and unicorns at PwC India.

In November, the government announced four new labour codes, which went into effect immediately. One part of the labour codes directs food delivery, e-commerce, and quick-commerce companies to allocate up to 2% of their annual turnover for platform and gig workers.

The other issue is which company can enable brand stickiness. “Eventually, it's going to be about who can put a uniform on the workers, actually upskill them to help communicate better and actually increase the quality of customer experience that will win," added Makhija.

For Snabbit, the focus is now on prioritizing its core services before expanding into more markets. “We have scaled very fast, and in some areas our systems have not evolved as fast as the business itself," said Agarwal. “Over the next phase, our priority is to pause and strengthen the core, across technology, operations, and training, so that the quality of experience remains consistent as we scale."

A sustained cash burn may not be a bad thing. A single dominant player leaves an industry vulnerable if it fails, while competition tends to spur innovation. “It’s all about execution. Whoever does that best will win," Gupta said. “This won’t be a winner-takes-all market. Some players will dominate specific geographies. First-mover advantage isn’t about the overall brand, but about who enters a geography first."