Quikr Acquires Home Services Startup Zimmber

Online classifieds firm Quikr has acquired Mumbai-based online on demand home services startup Zimmber for around $10 million in an all-stock deal, two people privy to the development told BloombergQuint.

Quikr confirmed the development but declined to comment on the deal size. Zimmber is its fourth acquisition in the home services space.

The strategic acquisition will help the company accelerate its growth in household services, PD Sundar, Head of QuikrServices said in an email to BloombergQuint. The company wants to ramp up its presence in high frequency services such as plumbing and cleaning, added Sundar.

The 50-member team at Zimmber will join Quikr and will operate as an independent brand, said its Co-Founder, Amit Kumar. Another Co-Founder Anubhab Goel will move on from the company to pursue other goals, he added.

Zimmber which counts IDG Ventures, Aarin Capital and Omidyar Network as its investors has raised around $7.5 million so far. It provides on-demand home services including plumbing, carpentry, pest control, deep cleaning, sofa and carpet cleaning. It is currently operational in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, National Capital Region (NCR) and Pune and has about 1,500 service providers enlisted on its database.

Quikr On An Acquisition Spree

Zimmber is Quikr's seventh acquisition in the last 14 months as it enters new areas such as real estate consulting and home services.

Quikr's acquisition of Commonfloor in January last year was one of the biggest mergers in the real estate space. Interestingly majority of these acquisitions were stock deals.

Quikr which competes with Naspers-backed Olx, had last raised $19.4 million (Rs 130 crore) from Brand Capital, the ad-for-equity investment arm of media conglomerate Bennett, Coleman and Company Ltd (BCCL). It has so far raised $350 million and counts Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik AB, among others, as its investors, according to Crunchbase which collates information on startups.

Quikr reported a 79 percent increase in revenue in the financial year 2015-16. It posted a net revenue of Rs 94.5 crore. While it posted a net loss of Rs 534 crore in 2015-16, from Rs 446 crore in the year-ago period, documents filed with registrar of companies show.