This post was written on 24th May, 2025.

I am a proponent of Urban Company – according to me UC is exactly the kind of business India needs today. A lot of platform and aggregators have been scaled up in the past decade, but very few have been able to elevate livelihoods of all stakeholders across the value chain as UC. There is no denying that this support is emotional, for I have now built longstanding relationships with multiple professionals. Take for example my barber, I have been using his services for more than a year, and he always been quite appreciative of the impact UC has on his life. Not to mention he has 3 brothers, all of whom rely on UC as their primary source of livelihood. While the value proposition on consumers end is quite evident – it is difficult to get reliable and on-time delivery of home related services. For its professionals, UC is providing higher and more consistent income, along with upskilling opportunities. Beyond that, access to format credit becomes easier as professionals have a formal proof of earnings. UC as of EOM Dec’2024 had ~48,000 monthly active service professionals. Top 20% of professionals were taking home net > ₹40k/month. Average net earnings per hour are ~300 for all professionals, which is a fairly commendable number. (For a benchmark, earnings of >₹50k/month will place someone in the top 5 percentile).

Seems like they are also investing certain amount of time and money upskilling these professionals before they are launched on the platform. They have about 20 training centers and ~23% of India’s revenue from operations is spent on onboarding costs (Important to keep in mind that onboarding would also include search and communication costs to get partners onboarded, so exact spend on training is difficult to decode). There is a long way to go for us consumers treating our service professionals with dignity and compensating them fairly for their jobs. UC is a great step in that direction. I am looking forward to how this journey evolves post IPO.