India’s Urban Company Rakes in Record-Breaking IPO, Debuting 58% Above Issue Price
India’s leading home services platform, Urban Company, made a triumphant entry into public markets on Wednesday, surging 58% above its initial public offering (IPO) price. The company, headquartered in Gurugram, debuted on the Mumbai-based National Stock Exchange at approximately ₹162.25 per share ($1.84), a significant increase from its IPO price of ₹103.
The highly anticipated offering was subscribed over 100 times, demonstrating robust demand from both institutional and retail investors. This indicates that investors placed orders for 100 times more shares than were available, highlighting the strong market interest in Urban Company’s public listing.
Upon going public, Urban Company has provided a partial exit opportunity for its early backers, with Accel realizing the largest gains, followed by Elevation Capital and Tiger Global. The potential profits for Accel are nearly 45 times their initial investment, while Elevation stands to make around 30 times, and Tiger Global is looking at modest gains of approximately 1.3 times their cost basis.
Over the past decade, Urban Company’s success can be attributed to its ability to digitize and organize traditionally unstructured household services in India, such as cleaning, plumbing, electrical work, massage, and beauty treatments. By creating an on-demand platform in a market that lacked standardization, the company has effectively established a near monopoly, maintaining its position as the largest organized player in this sector.
Before launching its $217 million public offering, Urban Company secured investments worth $97 million from anchor investors, including Goldman Sachs, Dragoneer Investment Group, Norges Bank, GIC, Nomura Amundi Funds, Steadview Capital, Prosus, and WhiteOak. Domestic mutual funds such as SBI Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential, Nippon, and UTI also participated in the pre-IPO secondary round.
Established in November 2014 under the name UrbanClap by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, Urban Company currently operates in 59 cities across four countries, including India, the UAE, Singapore, and Saudi Arabia. With India serving as its largest market to date, the company aims to expand its presence to more than 200 cities by the end of fiscal year 2030.
The net proceeds from Urban Company’s public offering will primarily be used for technology development, cloud infrastructure, lease payments for office spaces, and marketing initiatives.
