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PickMe E-Solutions, an electronics gadget after-sales service startup, has raised about Rs 12 crore in Series A from SIDBI Venture Capital.
Founded in 2012 by Praful Wadyalkar, former Head of Samsung Service and Wilbret Raj (owner of a fleet of service centres), PickMe had earlier raised a seed round of $500,000 from Mumbai Angels and Chennai Angels in 2013 and infused another round in 2015.
The Mumbai-based company basically helps people by saving their time and energy to visit to a service centre as it picks up the gadget, need to be repaired, from your doorstep, get it repaired at an authorised service centre and deliver it back by calling on a toll free number on its website. However, the company is now planning to build its own repair centres for certain mobile or electronics brand that does not have a centre in India. It has tied up with five brands including Oppo, OnePlus, LeEco amongst others.
“We plan to build about 10 repair centres in about 10 major cities in India in the next three months. Besides, we want to expand our concierge-based service to more cities. Right now we are in about 50 cities,” Wadyalkar told Business Line.
He also added the plan is to target a customer at the point of purchase or at the retail store. The services, which are likely to come bundled with the product, would cost about Rs 250 per year for the first year for unlimited visits. The company has started the repair services in Maharastra and is getting about 12,000 subscriptions on a monthly basis. “Earlier we used to target only in-warranty customers but now we will also cater to customers without any warranty too,” Wadyalkar said adding that the company expects to close this year at a Rs 15 crore revenue (mostly subscriptions).
PickMe accepts all handheld gadgets including mobile phones, cameras, watches, cam recorders, laptops, MP3 players, tablets and data cards. Plus it covers all major brands like Sony, Apple, Samsung, Nikon, Cannon, Nokia, Micromax, Tag Heuer, Dell, HTC, HCL and Acer, among others.
The company, with 120 employees, is also building its own technology team as it plans to roll out an app in the next two months wherein the customers can login to call book for a repair service.
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