India-based home services marketplace Housejoy has raised Rs 1.5bn ($22.5m) in a series B round led by e-commerce company Amazon, the Times of India reported yesterday.
Wireless communications technology producer Qualcomm, investment firm Ru-Net, venture capital firm Matrix Partners and Vertex Ventures, the VC arm of Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek, also supported the round.
Matrix previously provided $4m in series A capital for Housejoy in June this year.
Housejoy operates an online marketplace where users book home services from professionals such as plumbers, electricians and beauticians. The platform claims to list some 50,000 such providers and is currently available in 11 cities across India.
The company will use the funding to expand into additional cities and increase the number of services that people can book from a current 13.
Saran Chatterjee, chief executive of Housejoy, said: “Amazon’s investment is a big deal coming at this time. We are keen to pick up their best practices and enhance our own scale.”
In the US, where Amazon offers its own version of the marketplace, dubbed Amazon Home Services, the similarly named Homejoy shut down in July 2015 after having raised $40m from investors including diversified conglomerate Alphabet.