Exclusive: Former ITC exec Pradeep Dhobale invests in home services startup Renowala

Hyderabad-based on-demand marketplace for home improvement services Renowala.com secured a second round of seed funding from FMCG veteran Pradeep Dhobale, a top company executive told Techcircle.in.

Dhobale, who is a former ITC executive and an active angel investor, picked a 6.25% stake in the firm for an undisclosed amount, Renowala CEO Joshua Kumar said. The capital will be used for talent acquisition, he said. Springforth Capital Advisors acted as adviser for Renowala.

"We are also looking at raising one more round of seed funding worth Rs 2 crore for our expansion plan," Kumar said.

In November last year, the company secured its first round of funding from Vibrant Logtally Pvt. Ltd for technology development for its website and mobile app.

The company, run by Renowala Online Pvt. Ltd, claims to have 1,000 service providers from Hyderabad and 300 from Bangalore on its platform. It plans to have a pan India presence by 2017.

Renowala would compete with the likes of Housejoy, Fixy and Taskbob besides a host of other players.

In February, home services startup Sayfix raised $160,000 (about Rs 1.1 crore) in angel funding led by Yajnanarayana Kammaje, MD of Bangalore-based Sona Group of Industries.

Other companies in the home services space that raised funding include UrbanClap (Accel Partners and SAIF Partners), LocalOye (Tiger Global and Lightspeed), Qyk (Zishaan Hayath, co-founder, Toppr.com; Abhishek Goyal, co-founder, Tracxn.com; and Delhivery co-founder Sahil Barua), and FindYahan (led by Karan Bajwa, managing director of Microsoft India).

Early signs of consolidation in the space have emerged with Paytm acquiring Near.in and Mumbai-based TaskBob acquiring Zepper recently.

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

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