Laundry, babysitting or kitchen chores? There’s an app for that

Earlier this month, a new venture by former Zepto executive Snabbit raised $5.5 million from Elevation Capital, Nexus Venture Partners and other investors. Food and grocery delivery player Swiggy launched Pyng, an app to aggregate fitness trainers, astrologers and financial consultants.

Zomato-owned Blinkit is said to be working on building an Urban Company-like offering to make neighbourhood services like plumbers and electricians more accessible to customers.

“At Zomato, we run multiple small experiments in which local economies can benefit from technology, which makes products and services more accessible for customers. Home services is one such experiment where we are exploring whether we can make our neighbourhood services like electricians, plumbers, etc. more accessible to customers,” Albinder Dhindsa, chief executive of Blinkit, said in a letter to shareholders in Q4 FY23.

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“We are in the age where everything—food, grocery, clothes, and even electronics—is available to us at the tap of a button. But it’s difficult to find an on-demand service for simple household tasks like mopping, cleaning dishes and making the bed. That’s what we want to solve,” Ayush Agarwal, chief executive officer of Snabbit, said.

Younger consumers are driving the demand, given high disposable incomes and openness to new services. Anjali, a 26-year-old marketing executive in Mumbai, frequently uses Urban Company’s services for routine repairs like carpentry and plumbing, as it is formal and hassle-free compared to searching for a professional each time. “I’m open to trying new platforms if given a choice,” she said.

India’s home services market is expected to touch $21 billion by 2032 from $5 billion in 2023, as per estimates by market intelligence firm Zion Market Research.

Organizing the market

Success in the segment relies heavily on the ability to organize effectively, according to Karan Taurani, analyst at Elara Capital.

The home services space remains largely unorganized, dominated by local professionals like neighbourhood carpenters and electricians. “Organizing any market is not easy. Consumer-facing spaces like home services are far more challenging since they require rebuilding consumer habits and preference,” Taurani added.

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Snabbit’s Agarwal agreed that the market needs to be created, especially as repeat usage is highly discretional. “What we’re doing is building India’s first hyperlocal general services platform which democratizes the way services are imagined. We are that ad-hoc service provider that solves non-recurring use cases which every household may need just 4-5 times a month,” he said.

However, firms with a well-established user base are more likely to find early success, according to Elara Capital’s Taurani. Swiggy’s 5.7 million and Zomato’s 7.4 million subscribers present a strong opportunity for the food-tech firms to cross-sell a set of new services. “However, keeping in mind the rising competition, loyalty must be solved,” he said.

Snabbit’s business model entails striking partnerships with professionals through an incentive structure that aligns with attendance and service quality. By guaranteeing a minimum income and other benefits like insurance, Snabbit ensures its 100+ professionals come back to the platform every day, Agarwal said.

Currently live in Mumbai, Snabbit aims to expand to major metro cities in the next 6-9 months.

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