Hyperlocal stays hyper, UrbanClap raises $10M in Series A funding
Hyperlocal startups in India are giving e-commerce giants a run for their money. And now on the top of it, even the investors seem to take an added interest in this sector. After raising the seed round of $1.6M, Delhi-based mobile services marketplace UrbanClap, has now raised $ 10 million in funding from its existing investors SAIF Partners and Accel Partners. The company, currently serving Delhi-NCR, Bangalore and Mumbai plans to invest the funds to scale its operations Pan-India, strengthening its technology, and growing its 100 member team to 500+.
Mukul Singhal, SAIF Partners, believes that local Services is a very big market and pain point for the India consumer. There is high level of non-standardization of service quality, pricing and supplier base. The market is ripe for disruption, both from a discovery and consumption of services perspective.
Started in October 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra , UrbanClap offers 50+ hiring services across 5 major categories – Home, Health, Events, Lessons and other personal services. The earlier investors in the company include Kunal Bahl, Rohit Bansal – the founders of Snapdeal as well.
Abhiraj Singh Bhal, the co-founder says,
The problem we are solving, hiring of a trusted local service professional,is extremely broken. In a short span of a few months since launch, we are currently serving 1500+ customer requests each day. Additionally, we have a strong, engaged base of 5000+ suppliers, connected to our merchant app. With the new funding, we plan to grow 10 times on every metric in the quarter.
UrbanClap works on two simple models. For standardized, blue collared services like electricians or home cleaning, where you just want the job done, you can directly book and pay for the service on their app. For white collared services, which are the larger part of the business, like photographers, interior designers or yoga instructors, UrbanClap makes the effort to understand exactly what you need, and helps you hire the right professional, in your budget, most suited to meet that need. This is done through an automated match-making algorithm, which the team is investing heavily to continue perfecting. UrbanClap also does a background check and police verification for all its professionals. For this purpose, they have hired a retired superintendent of police.
Abhinav Chaturvedi, Accel India, believes that UrbanClap's smartphone based approach, high quality team and sharp focus on customer experience will differentiate them.
In 2015 alone, Hyperlocal segment has raised a total of ~$150M funding in around 30 deals.
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