Urban Clap has today (January 30, 2020) renamed itself to Urban Company. The Co-founder Abhiraj Bhal said, “its important to have a brand which is globally acceptable.”
Urban Clap which began as a home service start up has now stretched itself to Australia, Singapore and the UAE. It announced today that it has renamed itself as Urban Company. The name aims to capture the marketplace of beauty and wellness, home repairs and maintenance.
“From the neighbourhoods of Darling Harbour in Sydney to the condominiums of Gurgaon, Urban Company is a simple name with universal appeal. What remains unchanged is our commitment to offer reliable and affordable services at home”
Said the Urban Company Co-founder Abhiraj Bahl.
“This is possible only by being in close association with our service partners, helping them with up-skilling, financing,insurance, product procurement etc., transforming them into micro-service entrepreneurs”, he added.
Urban Clap was started by three young men Abhiraj Bahl, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, in 2014 with a huge idea for providing services ranging from pedicures to painting houses at home. In such a short span these young minds have added 20,000 exclusive service professionals like Kanchan and Khan across 10 cities in India and also in Dubai.
Urban Clap has till now raise funds around Rs. 700 crores (about $110 million) from investors like Accel Partners, SAIF partners and Tata Sons.
In less than 2 years' time this has become one of the highest funded start-ups in the hyperlocal segment and is valued at around $480 million.
The 3 co-founders went on this journey of connecting consumers with service providers along with re-organizing the market. Today they have made their footprints big enough and have hardly any competitors in the market, but the Justdial and Sulekha apps still exist. The key difference between them and Urban Clap is that they have cut the middlemen, present on other sites who keep most of the earnings.
Bhal says the company is also in the process of identifying one more international market outside of West Asia. “We believe our solution is sticky and is the right solution, especially for the trust-deficient emerging markets."
"Over the last decade or so, for the first time there is an ecosystem where if you are an entrepreneur, you don’t have to necessarily belong to the 15-20 or 25 families that have controlled India’s corporate sector,” says Bhal. “If you have a clear vision, if you have a product or a service that has a market, access to capital is available. You can go out there and build a company,” he added.
The way Urban Clap has evolved shows how the traditional market is evolving with people demanding smart services with smart shopping, according to the co-founders if one needs to stay in the race they have to keep up with the pace of changing technologies and adapting feasible business models.
Author: Aarya Mishra
