UrbanClap, now known as urban company is one of India’s famous startups that has a great story and glorious success.
Highlights
- UrbanClap or Urban company is a famous startup company that avails services like massage, cleaning and salon to your home.
- It was founded in November 2014 by its three great minds, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan.
- It’s goal was to empower many professionals and fulfill services like never before.
- Urban clap gives its services in 30+ cities in India and also countries outside India like Singapore, Australia and the UAE.
Urban company, formerly known as UrbanClap, came into existence in 2014. Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Raghav Chandra and Varun Khaitan are its three founders. It is India’s and UAE’s biggest home service company. This company offers services through its app and website like beauty and spa at home, carpentry, plumbing, cleaning, painting, appliance repair etc. 40,000+ hand-picked service professionals are working under the platform of urban company. The startup has grown immensely under two verticals of beauty & wellness and home repairs & maintenance.
They avail their services in 30+ cities in India including Agra, Bangalore, Delhi NCR, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, etc. They also operate in 4 countries outside India including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Australia and Singapore.
Urban company provides its professionals with financing, training and product and consumables support. This approach helps them in delivering their promise of delivering delightful, high quality and customer satisfactory services at home.
Origin of Urban Company
The world was quite progressed in 2014. However, there was problem for customers to find the services they really need. The founders of Urban Company felt that there was a void in how customer find services and the way in which they get connected with these service providers. So they worked together to establish an all-in-one platform that can help everyone who needs them.
Urban Company, as an organization considers the need of such a platform and by essentially transforming the yellow page design in an online stage.
Initially, it was a stage of lead- generation model, over the time Urban Company adapted a full-stack model that consigned gig workers and offer them financial assistance, access to branded tools and products, skill training and a ready-to-serve market. This model helped them sustain quality grade irrespective of the partners delivering the services, thus building consumer love and loyalty.
The founders raised a good amount of funds from various investors in a short time span. By 2015, they had more than a million dollars in funds. 12 investors funded in the Urban Company. Vy Capital, Tiger Global Management are the newest names on the list.
It has accumulated a total of $190.9M in 10 rounds in investment. On 25 august 2020, its most recent funding was from a secondary market round. They have acquired three establishments and glamazon is one of their newest addition.
Founders of Urban Company
Urban company is one of the most successful startup ventures in India. It has been successful in their promise of delivering satisfactory services. But this was not the first idea of its founders.
Abhiraj Singh Bhal and Varun Khaitan were working on their first startup called Cinemabox, an on- demand movie streaming platform that distributes entertainment in long-distance buses. Raghav Chandra was busy with starting his own startup called Buggy, an auto ride sharing app.
When they understood that their ventures were not going anywhere, they came together and created their successful venture “urban company”.
The founders have important roles in the development of the company. Abhiraj Bhal is responsible for the marketing and business development. Raghav Chandra is head of technology and product development. While Varun Khaitan takes care of the partner and operation success.
Urban Company- Full-stack model
The entire business model is built to a full-stack, fulfillment model. Following this approach signifies the investment in Urban Company’s partners in the factors of training, approaching branded products and tools, micro-financing and more. This model helps the customers to receive compatible services anytime and also rectify their experience and better rates.
In order to pivot this model, the team had planned the partner app as well as making out several abilities for UC partners such as a partner supply chain for the consumer, training centers on the basis of apps and video conferencing capabilities, a financial product, SOP flows and many more.
Until January 2020 Urban Company used to be UrbanClap. It is important to have a globally acceptable brand according to Abhiraj Bhal, the co-founder.
He further said,” From the neighborhoods of Darling harbor in Sydney to the condominiums of Gurgaon, Urban Company is a simple name with universal appeal. What remains unchanged is our commitment to offering reliable and affordable services at home. By working closely with our service partners, we help them with up-skilling, financing, insurance, etc., transforming into micro-service entrepreneurs”.
The motive of re-branding is to flourish the sub-brands under the umbrella company. They are even planning to expand their services into other cities of India.
Conclusion
Urban Company is an ideal example of a successful venture turned into a million dollar company. They are focus on customer satisfaction and high quality services. Urban Company saw outstanding results post lock-down. It is likely that they will double its revenue in this fiscal year compared to last year. To meet the demand growth, UC has been focused on increasing the partner strength.
The company is seeing strong growth in business despite the lock-down according to Varun Khaitan, co-founder. He also added that they have already crossed the pre-COVID peak by more than 30 percent and they are also confident of growing 2 folds. Urban Company has gained its client’s trust over the last 6 years. Due to the pandemic, people are more cautious about their hygiene. Most people now like salon services at home. Thus, they trust UC more because of their clean and professional services.
