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Online classifieds company, Quikr, is looking to invest about $37.5 Mn (INR 250 Cr.) in home services category to take on its rivals. The company had launched its home services vertical in October last year by the name QuikrServices.
Quikr plans to invest on product development including technology and in-house supply, marketing as well as for strategic investments in few startups. Besides, the company will also look to invest in training and verification in categories like plumbers, electricians and house cleaners.
PD Sundar, VP & Business Head at Quikr Services said, “There is a multi-fold methodology on how these funds will be utilized. From a product perspective, we will strengthen our mobile app user experience and build out robust CRM solutions for our SME customers to help them derive better ROI from their investments. On the marketing front, the investment will primarily be towards building data/analytics capabilities to cross-sell relevant services to our large base of consumers who transact on QuikrCars, QuikrHomes and QuikrC2C rather than acquiring new users.”
Other players in the home services segment include Findyahan, Urbanclap, Housejoy, Housejoy, Timesaverz, Zimmber among other. Amazon-backed Housejoy is currently fulfilling more than 4000 orders a day while Ratan Tata backed-UrbanClap serves about 5000 requests per day.
“In a way, QuikrServices is the thread that runs through many of our businesses and neatly ties everything together. It gets natural competitive advantage due to the consumer demand from our other categories, and in return creates the best experience for our users in these areas. It is a great example of the synergies inherent between our different verticals in terms of both user acquisition and user experience,” Pranay Chulet, Founder & CEO of Quikr added.
Quikr that last raised $150 Mn from its existing investors Tiger Global, Investment AB Kinnevik, and first time investor Hong Kong-based Steadview Capital, currently has 50 categories in the services space, and 250,000 service providers on the platform.
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