UrbanClap is a household services platform that connects service professional for everything from home decore to photography, learning arts to filing taxes, and getting healthier to learning guitar with customers. The startup, founded by Varun Khaitan, Abhiraj Bhal and Raghav Chandra, offers 84 types of home services, so far, that can be ordered online, and claims more than 5000 requests a day.
In a conversation with Your Story, Abhiraj said: "UrbanClap is a platform to make our urban lives more fulfilling to solve our needs in a clap. Hence the name, UrbanClap. It was born out of our ambitions to create a large tech business solving a primary customer need in India. We realized local services as an industry is such a central part of our lives but extremely broken."
UrbanClap aims to make availing home services easy and instantaneous and works as a bridge between professional service providers and service receivers.
The startup recently raised $25M in funding from SAIF Partners, Accel Partners, and Bessemer Venture Partners. The market size for home services is estimated at close to US$100 billion, and with new funding UrbanClap plans to become the leader in the market.
However, there are almost half dozen competitors in the space. UrbanPro, Doormint, TimeSaverz, Mr. Right, Taskbob and Zepper are few to name.
The market and the business
Generally speaking, India is a big market for almost everything. Growing urbanization is creating more and more opportunities for tech-enabled services like UrbanClap. Traditionally, Indians rely on domestic help for home services but due to trust and safety it is becoming increasingly a hard choice. UrbanClap is solving this trust and safety problem as well. The startup promises to connect customers with trusted professionals.
UrbanClap is now a team of 25 people and growing fast. With new funding, the startup aims to invest more in technology and building a product that can serve better both customers and professionals.
Now the startup operates in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, and Pune. The startup plans to expand in 25 more cities and add more services.
Like all other early stage tech startups, UrbanClap is not looking for making money rather growing fast and building a product that works. However, over the time it plans to charge professionals a small commission for getting job on its platform.
There is more than one option to make money if the platform works. Done right, UrbanClap has a bright future. However, we will have to wait to see how it goes.
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