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Online home services firm, UrbanClap is eyeing profitability in another two-odd years.
According to Varun Khaitan, co-founder of UrbanClap, the company should be close to profitability by 2018.
“We are not into deep discounting, and by 2018, we should be close to profitability. Then, the management will take a call on whether to go for expansion, or otherwise,” he said.
Khaitan said UrbanClap has an average transacting gross service value of ₹50 crore every month.
The company provides home services on-demand, and charges a fee on the leads (contact details) provided to professionals listed with it;end-users are not charged. The fee ranges 1-20 per cent.
UrbanClap has already raised $37 million from three rounds of funding.
Having begun operations in 2014, UrbanClap has a presence in eight cities — New Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
Services in Kolkata were launched recently.
Around 60,000 professionals are listed with the firm, providing close to 100 different services at home.
These are broadly the categorised under health and wellness (physiotherapy, fitness trainer yoga classes), beauty, including salon services; business services, (installing CCTVs at home, tax consultation and Chartered Accountant services for small businesses, lawyers, etc), home care (interior designing solutions, pest control), weddings and events, repairs and maintenance (listed plumbers/electricians), personal services and logistics (packing and moving solutions).
ExpansionUrbanCLap primarily competes with home-services providers such as Justdial and Sulekha.com.
The start-up is also targeting to expand into 3-4 new cities next year, apart from consolidating its presence in Kolkata. Cities on its radar include Jaipur, Chandigarh and Lucknow.
This apart, it is also exploring a possible foray into overseas markets — South-East Asian and Wesat Asian countries.
According to Khaitan, UrbanClap will focus in Indian market for at least another year to increase its average daily bookings to 10,000-15,000 from 5,000-6,000, before a call is taken on the overseas foray.
Asked on the impact of demonetisation, Khaitan said use of digital payments has increased five-fold for standardised services though there was no major rise in volume.
Digital payment options, that accounted for 10-12 per cent of the options for standardised services (charges that can be regulated by the company), has now increased to 50 per cent.
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