Housejoy buys on-demand laundry services firm MyWash

Bangalore-based Sarvaloka Services On Call Pvt Ltd, which operates home services marketplace Housejoy, has acquired on-demand laundry services provider MyWash for an undisclosed amount.

The deal would make Housejoy the largest player in India's organised on-demand laundry services space, the company claims. The core team of MyWash would join Housejoy as part of the transaction. The company is looking to scale to 10,000 services per day over the next year for the laundry vertical.

Launched in January 2015, Housejoy provides services around maintenance, home repairs, plumbing, electrical, computer repairs and in-house bridal make-up, besides laundry services. It currently operates in 13 cities. In September, the company roped in Flipkart's Saran Chatterjee as CEO.

Housejoy raised Rs 150 crore (around $22.4 million) in Series B funding from a group of investors led by e-commerce giant Amazon in December. This round also saw participation from Temasek's venture arm Vertex Ventures, Qualcomm and Ru-Net Technology Partners along with Housejoy's existing backer Matrix Partners.

MyWash, run by MyWash Technologies Pvt Ltd, was founded in 2014 by BITS Pilani graduates Silus Reddy Chintapalli, Raghu Bharat and Balaji Ashok. MyWash aggregates laundromats on to one platform and takes control of quality. Mumbai-based Orios Venture Partners had earlier put $1 million in MyWash.

In the home services marketplace space, Delhi-based UrbanClap Technologies India Pvt Ltd had raised $25 million (Rs 165 crore) in its Series B round of funding last month from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.

Other competitors include LocalOye, UrbanPro and Qyk, many of whom have also raised early-stage funding.

Early signs of consolidation has started showing with Paytm acquiring Near.in and last month, Mumbai-based TaskBob acquired Zepper.

All these firms are competing with public listed Just Dial, the biggest online local business search directory in the country.