In first signs of emergence, of a heavily-backed leader in the rather overcrowded home services market segment in India, HouseJoy, one of India’s more prominent home services marketplace among all others, has gulped down a massive 150 crores ($22.4 Million) in a Series B round, led by none other than Amazon India.
The round was led by Amazon and included new investors Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm and Ru-Net Technology Partners. Existing investors Matrix Partners India, which had invested close to $4 Million in a Series A round in January this year, also participated.
HouseJoy, which currently claims to be processing over 4000 orders in a day, will deploy this fresh capital to grow and “innovate” the category with better enhanced technology to be used to help solve deep operational issues; strategic acquisitions, partnerships and to build the team.
The upstart is eyeing a presence in more than 10 cities with a gargantuan 50,000 service providers on the platform to serve 100,000 jobs per day.
Saran Chatterjee, CEO and co-founder at Housejoy says,
This is a significant milestone for Housejoy in its journey to become the most trusted home services brand in India. This round is a great validation of our growth, team strength and ability to execute in these short 9 months.
Amit Agarwal, Vice President and Country Manager, Amazon India said in a written statement,
Housejoy seeks to provide customers with a differentiated experience in shopping for home services. We are excited to back the housejoy team that shares our obsession for inventing on behalf of customers with a long term focus.
He further adds, that “This aligns with our mission in India – to transform the way India buys and sells” signalling possible investments in this or related space.
The investment could also be strategic on Amazon India’s part. Early this year, Amazon had launched a home services division — Amazon Home in the US. In India though, looking at how complicated things are when it comes to home services, investing in startups already in the field and buying a stake could well be Amazons India’s very own home services strategy in the long run.
Google too has been looking to get into the space, with rumoured hiring of now shut down US based home services marketplace Homejoy. Though an India entry for Google might still be distant, this investment into HouseJoy could well be Amazon’s strategy to get a headstart.
Launched this January, Housejoy has been growing at a rapid pace on a month-on-month basis and is currently fulfilling more than 4000 orders a day. The startup has partnered with more than 10,000 service providers across eleven cities on its platform, and have expanded to Chandigarh this month.
