Local services mobile marketplace LocalOye has raised Rs 31 crore in the first round of funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Tiger Global Management.
LocalOye will use the funds to aggressively scale nationwide and expand to more service categories, said a company release. The company will begin operations in Bengaluru in May, followed by NCR.
LocalOye currently operates in Mumbai, offering services in categories including home services, education (tutors), wellness (yoga instructors) and events (photographers). Commenting on the fund-raise, LocalOye founder Aditya Rao said, "Over the past 1.5 years, we have solved some of the toughest local services problems, and now it is time to exponentially build on this momentum by continuing our focus on great execution, merchant quality and customer delight."
Current solutions by local service companies operating in the space are dependent on a classifieds approach, with hundreds of listings and manual phone calls. LocalOye aims to eliminate this and make it hassle free for the customers while providing "50 times better conversion rates" for service professionals.
The company team does screening and personal verification of each service professional to ensure quality, assurance and fair pricing, said the company officials. Lightspeed India managing director Dev Khare said, "LocalOye brings a disruptive experience to the classifieds and yellow pages market that has not seen innovation in a decade."
In the next few months, LocalOye would be investing heavily in technology and building the team. Lee Fixel, Partner, Tiger Global Management said, "LocalOye's vision to bridge the online-to-offline services market in India is highly compelling for both consumers and businesses."
In 2014, LocalOye had raised its initial seed round of funding from some of the top angel investors, including Sidharth Rao (co-founder Webchutney), Haresh Chawla (ex-Group CEO Network 18 and India Value Fund partner), and Sachin Bhatia (co-founder of MakeMyTrip).
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