On demand personal service start up DoneThing raises $300,000

Gurugram-based DoneThing, an on-demand personal assistant service, has raised $300,000 funding from Brand Capital, the investment arm of media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd.

The funds raised will be used for geographical growth and service expansion.

DoneThing is a cross segment on-demand personal assistant fulfilling customer's daily needs. It utilises a blend of innovation and operations to empower people to make the most of their daily time and productivity. The start-up enables to do more in the same amount of time via delegation of daily mundane tasks.

DoneThing runs errands from shopping like purchasing medicines, personal care items, groceries, to completing tasks like collecting laundry, pick up & drop of documents/invoices, cheque deposits, repair of shoes/electronics, notary and government ID work to finding neighbourhood professionals like electrician, driver on demand or any kind of help like planning travel and cab bookings.

Founded in 2015 by Karan Saharan, Chetan Agarwal, Sonal Saraogi, and Rohit Pansari, the start-up had raised $230,000 from Hong Kong-based Swastika Co Ltd in March 2016.

"This investment is a significant step in propelling the brand to newer heights with core focus on brand building and leveraging the media publications for advertising under the Times Group. The company intends to go aggressive in print, radio & digital, thereby increasing their customer base, building brand awareness and encourage service trials. The company projects 700 per cent growth in revenues for the FY 2017-18", the company said in a statement.

Commenting on the announcement, Karan Saharan, co-founder, DoneThing said "We are constantly on the look-out for innovative ways to enhance the user-experience and widen our offerings. Our vision is to change the way people spend their time, giving them the power to do more via delegation. We intend to give them access to a support system, available at their disposal to carry out the mundane tasks, thus freeing up their time to focus on the bigger things in life. With this fresh round of funding, we are aiming at a two-pronged approach- tapping newer geographies (like Bangalore and Mumbai) and making our presence in the Delhi NCR market more robust. This deal is a precursor to the bigger funding round to follow."

"DoneThing addresses a very interesting problem and has a huge market to cater to. The team is a unique mix of professionals from different backgrounds. They have done a stupendous job in building the product and got a good traction in the business. We are convinced that this team will go a long way in profitably scaling up DoneThing", Brand Capital's spokesperson said.