Urban Company Founders: How Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan And Raghav Chandra Built A Home Services Revolution
Urban Company: There was a time when finding a reliable electrician, plumber, cleaner, beautician, or appliance repair professional usually meant asking a neighbour, calling a local contact, or simply hoping that the person who arrived would do a good job. The process was often uncertain, time-consuming and difficult to manage.
Urban Company entered this everyday problem with a simple but powerful idea: what if home services could be booked as easily as ordering something online?
That idea eventually grew into one of India’s most recognised technology-driven home services platforms. Originally launched as UrbanClap in November 2014, the company was founded by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra. It later changed its name to Urban Company in January 2020 as it expanded its vision beyond a single category of local services.
Behind this journey are three founders with different professional experiences but a shared belief that technology could bring structure, convenience and better opportunities to a largely fragmented services industry. Today, the founders continue to hold key leadership positions at the company, with Abhiraj Bhal serving as Chairperson, Managing Director and CEO, Varun Khaitan as Executive Director and COO, and Raghav Chandra as Executive Director and Chief Technology and Product Officer.
Who Are the Founders of Urban Company?
Urban Company was built by three entrepreneurs, Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra. Their professional journeys were different, but each brought experience that became valuable while building the company.
Abhiraj Singh Bhal is the most publicly visible face of Urban Company and currently serves as its Chairperson, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer. He studied electrical engineering at IIT Kanpur before completing a postgraduate diploma in management from IIM Ahmedabad. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he worked with The Boston Consulting Group. According to Urban Company’s investor information, he has been associated with the company since December 2014 and has been responsible for areas including overall strategy, business growth, market expansion, operations and investor relations.
Varun Khaitan, another co-founder, is also an IIT Kanpur alumnus. His professional background included experience at The Boston Consulting Group before he joined the entrepreneurial journey with Abhiraj and Raghav. He now serves as Urban Company’s Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer. His role has been closely connected with the company’s operational growth and the execution of its business model.
Raghav Chandra brought a different kind of expertise to the founding team. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley and had professional experience associated with companies including Twitter and Nimble. At Urban Company, he has played a major role in technology and product development and currently serves as Executive Director and Chief Technology and Product Officer.
This combination was important. One founder brought business and strategy experience, another focused heavily on operations, while the third brought strong technology and product thinking. Together, they created a company designed around a problem that millions of households were already facing.
How Urban Company Started in 2014
The Urban Company story began with the founders recognising that India’s home services industry was highly fragmented and largely offline. Customers needed plumbers, electricians, cleaners, beauty professionals and other workers, but finding dependable professionals was often difficult.
At the same time, skilled service professionals faced their own challenges. Many depended on contractors, middlemen or local aggregators to find customers. This could make their earnings unpredictable and limit their ability to build a professional reputation.
The founders saw an opportunity in connecting both sides through technology. Instead of simply creating another directory of service providers, they wanted to build a more complete system where customers could discover, book and receive services while professionals could receive training, support and access to customers.
Urban Company’s own description of its early strategy highlights three broad ideas: creating a strong customer experience, empowering service professionals and putting technology at the centre of the business.
That approach became the foundation for what would eventually become Urban Company.
From UrbanClap to Urban Company
The company initially operated under the name UrbanClap. For several years, the brand grew under this identity and expanded its range of services.
But as the business became larger, the founders realised that the name did not fully represent the direction in which the company was moving. In January 2020, UrbanClap was rebranded as Urban Company. The new name was intended to reflect a broader vision for delivering different kinds of services at home.
The rebranding was more than a simple change of logo or name. It represented the company’s ambition to become a wider home-services brand rather than being associated with a single marketplace concept.
Urban Company’s service categories grew to include beauty and spa services, cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair, painting and several other home-related needs.
The idea was straightforward. Instead of searching for different professionals through different channels, customers could use one platform for multiple everyday requirements.
Why the Business Model Was Different
One of the most interesting parts of Urban Company’s journey is that it did not simply put customers and workers together and leave everything else to them.
The company developed what can broadly be described as a full-stack service model. This means the platform has tried to influence multiple parts of the service experience, including professional onboarding, training, service quality, product or consumable support and customer experience.
This was particularly important in a market where service quality could vary dramatically from one professional to another.
Urban Company has described its approach as transforming service professionals into organised and high-quality micro-entrepreneurs. The company has also invested in training and other forms of professional support.
For customers, the benefit was the possibility of a more predictable experience. For professionals, the platform could provide access to customers without depending entirely on traditional middlemen.
That combination helped Urban Company create a business model around both sides of the marketplace rather than focusing exclusively on consumer convenience.
The Role of Technology in Urban Company’s Growth
Technology has always been at the centre of Urban Company’s business. A customer can use the company’s digital platform to discover available services, understand pricing, select a suitable time and book a professional. Behind that simple experience is a much more complicated technology and operations system.
Matching the right professional with the right customer, managing schedules, maintaining service quality, handling payments and collecting feedback all require technology and operational coordination.
This is where Raghav Chandra’s technology and product background became particularly relevant. Building a technology platform for home services is not the same as building a simple shopping website. Services happen in the real world, at a customer’s home, often within specific time windows. That creates a completely different set of challenges.
Urban Company’s growth shows how digital technology can be used not just to sell products, but also to organise offline services.
Expanding Beyond Basic Home Repairs
Urban Company did not remain limited to electricians, plumbers and repair professionals. Over time, the company expanded into beauty, grooming, cleaning, painting, appliance services and other categories. This allowed the platform to become part of more areas of a customer’s everyday life.
The company also moved into product categories and adjacent home solutions. One example is its Native water purifier business, which brought a consumer product into a company that had originally become known primarily for services.
This expansion reflects an important part of Urban Company’s strategy. Once a company has built customer trust around a particular need, it can potentially use that relationship to solve related problems.
For example, a customer who books appliance repair may also need a replacement product. Someone looking for home cleaning may later require painting or home improvement services. Building several connected categories can therefore create opportunities for the company to serve customers in more situations.
Urban Company’s International Ambitions
The founders did not limit their ambitions to India. Urban Company expanded internationally into markets including the UAE and Singapore, while the company has also developed a presence across additional international markets over time. Its careers information describes operations across India, Singapore, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
International expansion is particularly challenging for a home-services platform because every market has different customer expectations, labour structures, regulations and service habits.
A model that works in one city cannot simply be copied everywhere without adaptation. The company’s international journey therefore became another test of whether its technology and operational model could work beyond its original Indian market.
The Founders’ Vision for Service Professionals
Urban Company’s story is not only about making life easier for customers. The company has repeatedly placed attention on the professionals who actually deliver the services. The founders recognised that many skilled workers operated in an informal and fragmented environment. Their objective was to create a platform where professionals could receive training, access customers and potentially improve their earnings and livelihoods.
Urban Company has invested in training and support for its service partners and has also introduced measures around insurance and safety. In 2026, the company said active service professionals were covered under group life and accidental insurance, with additional medical benefits described in its investor announcement. This part of the model is important because a home-services platform cannot succeed simply by attracting customers. It also needs a strong network of professionals who are willing to provide those services.
Funding Helped Urban Company Scale
Like many technology startups, Urban Company’s growth was supported by external investment. The company raised significant funding over the years, including a $255 million Series F round. Urban Company said the funding would be used for areas such as innovation, training, product development, quality control, safety measures and geographic expansion.
Funding allowed the company to invest in technology and operations while expanding into new cities and categories. But raising money alone does not create a successful company. The bigger challenge is using that capital to build a business that customers continue to use, and professionals want to work with.
Urban Company’s journey shows how startup funding can provide fuel, but the underlying business model still has to prove itself in the real world.
Urban Company’s Growth Into a Larger Platform
The scale of the business has changed dramatically since the early UrbanClap days. Urban Company’s own materials describe a platform operating across dozens of cities and offering more than 50 types of home and beauty services. The company has also reported millions of bookings and a large network of trained service professionals. The company has continued experimenting with new business ideas as well.
One recent example is InstaHelp, a quick-service housekeeping vertical. In March 2026, Urban Company announced that InstaHelp had crossed one million monthly delivered bookings, making it the fastest-growing business unit in the company’s history at that point. The service covered tasks such as cleaning, dishwashing, laundry and meal preparation in selected cities.
This development shows how the company’s original idea has evolved. Urban Company is no longer simply about booking a professional for a traditional repair or beauty service. It is increasingly trying to become a broader platform for everyday home needs.
Abhiraj Bhal’s Leadership at Urban Company
Among the three founders, Abhiraj Bhal has become the most visible public representative of the company. His responsibilities cover broad areas of the business, including strategy, growth, market expansion and operations. His educational background from IIT Kanpur and IIM Ahmedabad, combined with his earlier consulting experience at BCG, gave him exposure to business strategy before he entered the startup world.
But the Urban Company story is not the story of one founder alone. The company’s current leadership structure still reflects the three-founder model, with Varun Khaitan overseeing operations and Raghav Chandra leading technology and product.
That division of responsibility has allowed the founders to focus on different sides of the business while continuing to work toward a shared vision.
Varun Khaitan and the Importance of Operations
Technology may attract attention, but home services ultimately depend on operations. A customer does not simply want an app that looks good. They want the professional to arrive on time, perform the service properly and leave the home in good condition. This makes operational management one of the most difficult parts of the business.
Varun Khaitan’s role as Chief Operating Officer places him at the centre of this challenge. His work is connected to making the company’s large service network function efficiently while maintaining the experience that customers expect.
For a business operating in the physical world, that operational layer can be just as important as the technology behind the app.
Raghav Chandra and the Technology Backbone
Raghav Chandra’s role is equally important because Urban Company’s entire model depends on technology. From customer booking to professional matching, scheduling, payments, feedback and service management, technology connects the different parts of the ecosystem.
His background at Berkeley and professional experience at technology companies such as Twitter and Nimble gave him exposure to technology and product development before Urban Company.
As Chief Technology and Product Officer, his focus remains closely connected to the systems that allow Urban Company to operate at scale.
What Makes the Urban Company Story Interesting?
The most interesting part of Urban Company’s journey is perhaps how ordinary the original problem was. The founders did not begin by trying to solve a futuristic problem. They focused on something people deal with regularly: finding someone trustworthy to fix, clean, repair or improve something at home. The innovation was in turning that fragmented offline experience into an organised digital service.
That required more than an app. It required building a professional network, creating service standards, developing technology, managing logistics and earning customer trust. Over time, that simple idea grew into a much larger business.
The Future of Urban Company
Urban Company’s journey is still evolving. The company continues to experiment with new categories, technology-enabled services and faster ways of meeting everyday household needs.
Its recent expansion into quick-service housekeeping through InstaHelp is one example of how the company is looking beyond traditional appointment-based services.
The broader opportunity remains significant. Homes will always need cleaning, repairs, maintenance, beauty services and improvements. The challenge is to deliver those services consistently while creating sustainable opportunities for the professionals who provide them. That is where the founders’ original vision remains relevant.
Conclusion
Urban Company’s journey from a small startup called UrbanClap to a large technology-driven home services platform is a story about solving an everyday problem in a new way.
Founded in November 2014 by Abhiraj Singh Bhal, Varun Khaitan and Raghav Chandra, the company recognised that India’s home services market was fragmented and that both customers and professionals needed a more organised system.
The company later adopted the Urban Company name as it expanded its ambitions and service categories. Today, its founders continue to occupy key leadership roles, with Abhiraj Bhal leading the company as CEO and MD, Varun Khaitan handling operations as COO, and Raghav Chandra leading technology and product.
What began as a solution for finding home-service professionals has grown into a broader technology platform serving multiple aspects of modern home life. Its story also shows that successful startups do not always begin with complicated ideas. Sometimes, the biggest opportunities are hidden inside everyday frustrations that millions of people experience.
Urban Company’s founders saw one such frustration and decided to build a better system around it. The result is a company that has not only changed how many customers book home services, but has also attempted to bring greater structure, training and opportunity to a traditionally fragmented workforce.
