Quikr rebrands in-house beauty services offering as AtHomeDiva

Online classifieds firm Quikr India Pvt. Ltd has rebranded its in-house beauty services offering as AtHomeDiva, as it seeks to sharpen its focus on a segment that's increasingly getting crowded with the entry of several startups.

The rebranding follows Quikr's acquisition of on-demand beauty services platform Salosa in May. The acquisition was part of Quikr's strategy to scale faster and deeper into key categories under its QuikrServices vertical, which will house AtHomeDiva.

AtHomeDiva will offer a full range of in-home beauty and styling services including hair care, skin care and make-up, through qualified beauty professionals. The service is currently offered through the Quikr app and website and will soon be provided through a separate app.

The company said the idea behind the rebranding was to tap into the consumer connect potential of the on-demand beauty services vertical. "Beauty services is a little more specialised need, so we decided to also offer it as a separate app for very frequent users," said PD Sundar, head of QuikrServices. "It will continue to be offered within QuikrServices on the overall Quikr app also."

Pranay Chulet, founder and CEO of Quikr, said in a statement that the beauty services business had access to a large base of women users from not just QuikrServices but also from QuikrGoods and QuikrHomes. "On the supply side, we were able to on-board a large number of beauty experts from QuikrJobs. We expect such synergies to play out more and more, giving us a fundamental competitive advantage in any business we enter," he said.

AtHomeDiva competes with a host of on-demand beauty services startups such as MyGlamm, Stylofie.com, StayGlad and Vyomo. MyGlamm raised $6 million in April while offline salon chain Naturals is investing $15 million in Vyomo.

Horizontal home services players such as Housejoy and UrbanClap also offer beauty services. In fact, a large chunk of revenue for many home services players comes from the beauty segment, which offers high frequency of transactions, high margins and repeat business.

QuikrServices, launched in November last year, helps users find local service providers from cooks to carpenters under various categories and also lists services such as interior designing, home cleaning and repairing, appliances repairing, catering, broadband installation, packers and movers and pest control. QuikrServices claims it has 250,000 service providers offering about 80 types of services and is used by 1,00,000 customers a day.

Quikr was founded in 2008 by Chulet and Jiby Thomas, who quit the firm later. Its investors include Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Warburg Pincus, Matrix Partners India, Norwest Venture Partners, Nokia Growth Partners, Steadview Capital, Omidyar Network and Ebay Inc. In January, Quikr acquired real estate portal CommonFloor to push ahead with its strategy to create separate verticals for key segments such as cars, electronics, jobs, education and real estate.

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