India's Quikr acquires VC-backed Zimmber
Indian classifieds site Quikr has acquired Zimmber, a provider of household services backed by several VC investors.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, but Livemint reported that the all-stock deal valued Zimmber at about $10 million. Zimmber has become part of Quikr’s home services vertical QuikrServices, but will continue to operate as a separate brand.
Founded in 2014, Zimmber provides a platform through which people can book homes services such as plumbing, carpentry, cleaning and pest control. It raised a $2 million pre-Series A round from IDG Ventures and Sherpalo Ventures in 2015.
The company claims to have more than 1,500 service providers on the platform and to have served over 100,000 customers. Currently it operates in Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru; Quikr plans to take the company into new markets.
“In addition to the synergies between Zimmber and QuikrServices, we also see a great opportunity in offering our services to users in other Quikr verticals such as QuikrHomes, QuikrC2C and QuikrCars,” said Zimmber co-founder Amit Kumar in a statement. “Together we will be serving a larger customer base with varied demands to bring more trust and efficiency to the hyperlocal services market.”
Quikr claims to be India’s largest and broadest online classifieds platform, with a presence in 1,000 cities and more than 30 million unique users each month. It has raised several funding rounds since its launch in 2005 from investors including Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners India and Tiger Global Management. In its most recent round last August Brand Capital, an investment arm of India’s Times Group, committed INR1.3 billion ($19 million).
The company has embarked on a series of acquisitions aimed at expanding into new verticals, including VC-backed start-ups such as online hiring platform Hiree, beauty services marketplace StayGlad, and rental property listing platform Grabhouse. For the most part these deals have seen relatively low valuations, though property search website CommonFloor is an exception, having reportedly been valued at $120 million when it was bought last year.
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