UrbanClap raises $21 Mn from Vy Capital, exisiting investors

Ratan Tata-backed, UrbanClap, Gurugram-based home services marketplace, has raised $21 Mn in a fresh round of funding led by Vy Capital. The Series C funding also saw participation from existing investors SAIF Partners, Accel Partner and Bessemer Venture Partners.

As per a report, Vy Capital invested about $1 Mn in buying shares held by UrbanClap employees. Apart from this, the funding was used to take over partial stakes of angel investors and Snapdeal co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.

UrbanClap was founded in 2014 by Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra, and Abhiraj Bhal that allows users to hire professionals for in-house beauty services, house cleaning and repair, yoga and fitness, and similar services in eight cities – Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune.

Abhiraj Bahl, Co-Founder, UrbanClap, said, "The new round of capital gives us elbow room to invest in core areas of our business such as supply onboarding at scale, training, building spares and parts inventory, etc. This will help us firmly cement our market leadership position."

He said that the startup will use the recently raised funds to expand to more cities, invest in technology, and add new vendors.

Bahl said that the company was also looking to go the IPO route. He added, "We have to stay at the core of what we do and do not lose the market. I don’t see a reason why we will not be able to IPO at a healthy market cap."

Till date, UrbanClap has raised about $60.7 Mn funding in six rounds. InApril 2017, the company raised about $3.1 Mn (INR 20 Cr) in venture debt from Trifecta Capital through non-convertible debentures. Prior to that in December 2015, Ratan Tata had also invested an undisclosed amount in UrbanClap.

The company claims to have about 65,000 verified service professionals on its platform and served over 1.5 Mn customers till date.