Home services marketplace Urban Company said on Wednesday it has raised $255 million in a new financing round and confirmed a valuation of $2.1 billion, joining over a dozen other startups in India that have earned the unicorn status this year.
The new financing round — a Series F — was led by Prosus Ventures, Dragoneer and Wellington Management, while Vy Capital, Tiger Global and Steadview participated in it.
The Gurgaon-headquartered startup said the new round features a primary capital infusion of $188 million while the rest is a secondary sale by some angel and other early investors.
The startup has raised about $470 million to date.Formerly known as UrbanClap, the seven-year-old startup offers a range of home services on its platform. T
he idea of the startup came from its three co-founders, who in their early 20s were puzzled why nobody else was trying to take a stab at the industry, which remains largely unorganized, said Raghav Chandra, a founder of Urban Company, in an interview with TechCrunch. What started as an idea is now a unicorn.
The startup today operates in 35 cities in India, Singapore, Australia, the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. More than 35,000 service partners are active on the platform, said Chandra, who serves as Urban Company’s chief technology officer.“Urban Company is disrupting a large, fragmented industry that has seen low digital adoption until now,” said Ashutosh Sharma, head of investment for India at Prosus Ventures.
