UrbanClap Annual Revenue Mark Crosses $14.24m In FY19

Gurugram-based home services startup UrbanClap crossed the ₹100 crore ($14.24 million) annual revenue mark for the first time in fiscal year (FY) 2019, even as its operating loss rose 26% from a year ago to ₹72 crore ($10.25 million).

Gross revenue more than doubled to ₹116 crore in 2018-19 from ₹46 crore in the previous year, according to the company’s unaudited results, issued on Wednesday.

The company, however, did not disclose its net loss for FY19. It had trimmed net loss by a quarter in FY18 from ₹67 crore net loss in FY17.

Total expenditure climbed 92% to ₹212 crore in FY19 from ₹110 crore in the previous year. Employee benefits expenses and spending on marketing and promotions made up the bulk of UrbanClap’s expenditure in FY19.

Founded in 2014, the startup helps users hire professionals for home services such as beauty, house cleaning, repair, yoga and fitness, among other services, across 10 cities. It expanded to Dubai last year and plans to enter one more international market this year, UrbanClap CEO Abhiraj Bhal said in a phone interview.

In FY19, UrbanClap claimed to have completed around 3.3 million service orders, a sharp rise from around 1.2 million service orders in FY18. Gross transaction value (GTV) of all orders in the last financial year jumped to ₹400 crore from a GTV of ₹130 crore in FY18. GTV represents aggregate spends of a company’s customers in a particular financial period.

The firm claimed to have completed more than 620,000 service orders in April itself. This represented an annualized GTV of ₹1,000 crore and an annualized revenue run-rate of ₹200 crore, according to a company statement.

“Almost 80% of the 3.3 million service requests in FY19 are recurring orders, and we have seen lot of traction from Tier-2 cities. On an average, what these cities (Tier-2 cities) achieved in 4 to 5 months in terms demand is equal to 2 years’ worth of demand in Tier-1 cities,” Bhal said.

UrbanClap’s revenue comes from commissions it charges on each successful service offered. It charges a commission of the transaction fee from service providers, depending on the type of service availed by the customer.

Bhal said, however, that the company is deepening its relationship with service providers to speed up delivery and quality.

“We are looking at a full stack on service delivery…Across all the service experts and partners we on-board, we take care of everything for them, right from registration, accounting, financing, access to banking services, insurances for workers, and a tech platform to manage service requests,” he said.

UrbanClap has around 20,000 service professionals on its platform.

Currently, the biggest segment on the platform is beauty services, especially skin-care, hair-care, makeup, spa and men’s grooming services. Appliance and basic home repairs comprise its second-largest vertical.

This article was first published on livemint.com