Urban Company: Steadview and Vy Capital lead the Series D round of funding

Urban Company, a managed marketplace for home services based out of India and UAE, has announced the closure of its Series D round of funding. The round was led by Steadview Capital and existing investor Vy Capital. The company has raised USD 50 million in primary capital. Additionally, the company is also facilitating a secondary sale of ESOPs and stocks worth approximately USD 4 million for its employees and early angels. This is the second time that Urban Company’s employees are getting an opportunity to liquidate their ESOPs, the first instance being at the time of its Series C round of funding in June 2017.

Urban Company, founded in 2014, helps customers order services like beauty & massage, appliance repair, plumbing, carpentry, cleaning, painting etc. The company works closely with its service professionals (SPs) – providing them a steady stream of orders, branding, loans, insurance, training, bulk procurement of consumables etc. Consequently, these SPs operate as micro-franchises of Urban Company, allowing it to standardize the user experience.

Prior to joining Urban Company, SPs typically earn INR 10-15k per month (USD 150-200 per month). Their earnings remain low, given under-utilization, and majority of the margins being eaten up by middlemen and local aggregators. Urban Company’s operating model focuses on transforming these SPs into micro-entrepreneurs, multiplying their earnings by 2-3 times.

Urban Company will use this round of funding to accelerate customer and service partner onboarding, invest in team building, especially on the product and technology front, build training capabilities, enhance its supply chain of consumables, and continue to invest in building high quality experiences for both sides of the marketplace. It also plans to launch a host of Tier 2 cities in India, starting with Chandigarh which was launched this week.

Commenting on this fund raise, Urban Company’s Cofounder, Raghav Chandra said, “We have a mission to create more than 1 million micro-entrepreneurs for India and other emerging markets. Today, approximately 15,000 service professionals earn their livelihood through the Urban Company platform. We would like to grow that number 100 times over the next 5 years, while providing high quality, delightful services to our end users. This will require strong execution, and ahead of the curve investments into our technology platform and operational leadership. We are very excited about the journey ahead.”

Ravi Mehta, Founder and Managing Partner of Steadview Capital said, “We are excited to partner with Urban Company, which has revolutionized the Indian home services market in a short span of time. Their tech-centric approach of building quality supply in a trust-deficit market is solving a big consumer need, and enabling service professionals to be micro-entrepreneurs. The company’s focus on customer experience stands out, and we think very highly of the founders and the team.”

Vamsi Duvvuri of Vy Capital said, “We remain deeply impressed with the focus and execution of Urban Company team. We are happy to continue supporting them on their mission to turn 1 million+ service professionals into micro-entrepreneurs delivering high quality home and local services.”

The company’s other investors include Accel Partners, SAIF Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mr. Ratan Naval Tata.