On-demand cleaning platform UrbanYou has secured $1 million in funding as the company looks to accelerate its geographic expansion and partnership plans.
Co-founded by ex-Yahoo executives Elke Keeley and Noga Edelstein, UrbanYou connects people with verified cleaning and gardening professionals.
The company has completed more than 18,000 bookings on its platform across Sydney, and launched in Melbourne earlier this year.
Justin Lipman of Microequities Venture Capital, said it was UrbanYou’s unrelenting focus on customer service and its continued execution of strategic plans that prompted the fund to increase its stake in the company.
“UrbanYou’s focus on delighting its customers permeates every aspect of the business and helps drive exceptional rates of customer advocacy, retention and repeat usage.
“The key to success for an on-demand marketplace is to maintain both liquidity and service quality as the business scales. UrbanYou continues to excel on both fronts and is now well positioned as Australia’s leading marketplace for on–demand home services.”
Sector expansion
UrbanYou’s co-founders were recently invited to be a part of the 2017 Australian cohort at Springboard, a high-profile startup accelerator program for women-led tech companies. Noga Edelstein, co-founder of UrbanYou believes that the experience has helped focus the business and highlight new market opportunities.
“We’re experiencing incredible growth; we’ve sold more than $3 million worth of services through the platform and we’re set to triple in the next 12 months,” said Edelstein.
“However, it’s our commitment to providing the best experience to both sides of the marketplace that we are most proud of.”
“Initially we focused on the consumer side of the business, which has been very successful and helped us establish a strong foothold in the market,” said Edelstein.
“We’ve taken those learnings and with the extra investment are now applying them to new growth opportunities.”
Independent research published by the company revealed that 83 per cent of working Australians report feeling stressed at work, resulting in more than half (56 per cent) claiming they are too caught up and pressured with their job to find the time to tend to their home.
“Increasingly people are stretched for time; finding themselves working longer hours and having to juggle the burden of home and work life. Employers are recognising the need to support staff outside of the office, and as a result, we’re seeing a lot of interest in our services.
“This will be a major area of growth for us, along with geographical expansion, and an important part of the investment strategy,” concluded Edelstein.