Urban Company raises $190 mn at $2-bn valuation, joins unicorn club

Urban Company, India and UAE’s largest tech-enabled home services marketplace, has raised $190 million from investors led by Prosus (formerly Naspers). The funding has more than doubled the Gurugram-based company’s valuation to $2 billion. In 2019, the firm was valued at $933 million after a funding round, led by Tiger Global. Urban Company has now become a unicorn, a startup valued at more than $1 billion.

Urban Company has allotted 2,163 equity shares of Rs 1 each at a premium of Rs 2,65,552.10 each and 50,490 Series F compulsorily convertible cumulative preference shares (Series F CCPS) of Rs 10 each at a premium of Rs 2,65,543.10 each in the company on a preferential basis, aggregating to Rs 1,410.2 crore or $190 million, show regulatory documents sourced from the business intelligence platform Tofler. 

Besides Prosus, the other investors include DF International and Wellington Management. 

Founded in November 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, Urban Company (formerly UrbanClap) is the largest home services company in India and the UAE. It offers services like beauty and spa at home, cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair and painting through its mobile app and website. 

It has a partner network of over 30,000 hand-picked service professionals and operates in 18 cities of India, besides four international markets of Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sydney and Singapore. 

Urban Company is also backed by investors such as Accel Partners, Ratan Tata, and Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy.

India is fast emerging as a startup nation. In around a decade, the Indian startup ecosystem has scaled to become the third-largest start hub in the world followed by the US and China. The prosperous and vibrant startup ecosystem is working to boost the investment environment in India both from domestic and global investors, according to management consulting firm Praxis Global Alliance.

Urban Company has become the 13th Indian startup to become a unicorn in 2021. Some of these firms include Chargebee, Gupshup, ShareChat, Groww, Pharmeasy, Cred and Meesho.

Urban Company saw its total income almost doubling to Rs 263.07 crore in the financial year 2020 from Rs 132.04 crore in the financial year 2019, according to the regulatory documents. Its loss was at Rs 155.17 crore in the financial year 2020 as against a loss of Rs 78.48 crore in the previous fiscal.