Urban Company makes its Unicorn status official, plans IPO in 2022-23

Indian Gig marketplace for at-home services, Urban Company (formerly, UrbanClap) has formally announced that it has become a unicorn after a new round of funding that values the company at $2.1 Bn. The Series F funding round, from Tiger Global, Vy Capital and Steadview, of $188 million, took the valuation to $2 Bn. Further, Prosus (formerly Naspers) led the Series F round, the regulatory filings show. The development was first reported by Entrackr, who stated that Urban Company has allotted 2,613 equity shares and 50,490 Series F preference shares at an issue price of Rs 265,553.1 per share to raise Rs 1,410.2 crore or $188 million.

“With this funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business while continuing to invest further in the safety of our consumers and service partners, training of partners and product development,” said Abhiraj Singh Bhal, CEO and co-founder. He further added that the company was growing as people stay at home due to Covid-19. In an interaction with MoneyControl, Abhiraj, talking about the Unicorn status, said, “I think it's a very small milestone...I would want Urban Company to grow 200-300 times from here in my lifetime, and so in that journey, this is maybe the first milestone in a 42-mile marathon race. Doesn’t mean much beyond that.”

Further, in an interaction with Indian Express, he said, “In the next 18 to 24 months, we are working towards that . We have applied towards each of those points, including being ready from an internal capability and compliance standpoint; having the right set of internal checks in place in terms of IPO readiness.”

About Urban Company

Abhiraj Bahl, Raghav Chandra, and Varun Khaitan founded Urban Company (formerly, Urban Clap) in 2014. It is a home service company that focuses on beauty and massage, appliance repair, plumbing, carpentry, cleaning, and painting. At present, Urban Company operates in over 30 Indian cities. It also has international operations in Sydney, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Riyadh. It claims to have over 25,000 professionals on its platform serving around 5 million customers. The company changed its name from UrbanClap after it claimed that it wanted a more globally acceptable brand name.

Its early investors include Accel, Elevation Capital (earlier SAIF Partners) and Bessemer Venture Partners. With this fundraise, the three founders will each own 8.22% of the company. Elevation Capital (formerly Saif Partners) will hold a 14.56% stake, while Accel India will have a 14.40% stake.