Online marketplace for local services UrbanPro raises $2M from Nirvana Ventures

Bangalore-based ThinkVidya Learning Pvt Ltd, which owns and operates UrbanPro.com, an online marketplace for local services, has raised $2 million (Rs 12 crore) from Nirvana Ventures.

The firm will use the fund to enhance its product and expand into new verticals and cities.

The company was founded in 2011 by Rakesh Kalra as Think Vidya. It rebranded a month ago to UrbanPro in line with its plan to expand into verticals such as events planning, health/ fitness and photography.

"UrbanPro's mission is to help people hire smartly. We believe that our service is going to become integral part of life, and we are all working very hard to make that a seamless and rewarding experience.  This funding is a great vote of confidence to our vision…," said Rakesh Kalra, founder and CEO of UrbanPro.com.

Kalra has over 14 years of experience with different internet startups in the US. Prior to starting this company, he was VP (technology) at Care.com. Kalra holds a master's degree in Computer Science from Boston University and a BE degree from PEC University of Technology, Chandigarh.

The company has developed a LinkedIn-like platform for the teaching community, where individual teachers (including sports trainers) or institutes can create profiles, add skills/experience details and get recommendations from past students, among other features.

It now plans to build similar platforms across the other verticals. The expansion plan also includes greater focus on mobile product and hiring manpower across product, technology, sales, marketing and operations to significantly scale the offering. UrbanPro serves about five lakh consumers and gets over one million visits a month.