And more money has arrived to the local services marketplace vertical. UrbanClap, the Kunal Bahl-backed provider of blue and white collar workforce, has now gulped in a decent $10 million in latest funding round from its existing investors – SAIF Partners and Accel Partners.
With the new cash infusion, the company is now planning to invest money for the enhancement of its technology and hiring talent. It is also looking to expand its operations to at least 15 cities by the end of this year.
Varun Khaitan, co-founder of UrbanClap, said,
For standardised, blue-collared services like electricians or home cleaning, our customers can directly book and pay for the service on the app. For white-collared services like photographers, interior designers or yoga instructors, we help hire the right professional through an automated match-making algorithm.
As mentioned by Varun, UrbanClap’s white collar job searcher matches your requirements with the available professionals via an in-house developed algorithm.
Mukul Singhal, principal at SAIF Partners, said,
Local services are a very big market and pain point for the India consumer. There is high level of non-standardisation of service quality, pricing and supplier base. The market is ripe for disruption, both from a discovery and consumption of services perspective.
Founded in October 2014 by Varun Khaitan along with Raghav Chandra and Abhiraj Bhal with an aim to use technology and smart processes to structure the highly unorganized services market in India, UrbanClap helps you find the right service professionals for your important activities via its web and mobile platforms
Earlier, the Gurgaon-based start-up had received about Rs. 10 crore in seed funding round from SAIF Partners and Accel Partners along with Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, founders of Snapdeal.
UrbanClap is currently offering about 50 services on its platform across categories like home, health, events, and other personal services. It claims to be conducting third-party and police verification of all the listed merchants and professionals on its portal.
In just a span of two months, it has seen more than 6,000 registrations of sellers and over 60,000 app downloads. It currently operates in Delhi-NCR, Bangalore and Mumbai.
Once you explain your situation by providing answers to simple questions, the company shows you a list of suitable professionals within hours. You can go through their profile, experience and compare their rates. If you are interested in availing services of either of those, you can reach out to them directly.
Many start-ups have entered the online local and home services segment which lets you hire service professionals ike plumbers, electricians and event managers through their portal.
UrbanClap will compete with the likes of Taskbob, LocalOye, Housejoy and Goodservice. Taskbob has raised $1.2 million in seed round while LocalOye has raised $5 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Tiger Global Management.
