Urban Company prioritizes InstaHelp growth as losses widen
BENGALURU: Urban Company Ltd is prioritizing growth in its instant house-help service InstaHelp over near-term profitability, even as its core businesses become more profitable. A year after its stock-market debut, the home-services platform is absorbing mounting losses to scale the offering.
Revenue rose 41.4% year-on-year to ₹537.3 crore in the September quarter, beating Bloomberg’s consensus estimate of ₹517.1 crore. Net loss widened to ₹182.5 crore from ₹59.3 crore a year earlier, against an estimated loss of ₹134 crore.
“Every segment of our business has scaled well, growth has stepped up,” co-founder and chief executive Abhiraj Bhal said on the earnings call.
Consolidated net transaction value (NTV) rose 39.1% to ₹1,432.3 crore, while orders more than doubled to 15.1 million. Annual transacting users grew 34.5% to nearly 10 million. India consumer services grew 26.3%, international operations expanded 66.2%, and Native, its home-products business, recorded 35% NTV growth, with festive sales shifting into the December quarter.
Penetration in Urban Company’s largest service categories remains below 10% across the top eight cities, Bhal said, leaving room for expansion. The company is entering tier-two cities and improving availability, with customers increasingly able to find professionals within 30-60 minutes across its top 17 cities.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (Ebitda), excluding InstaHelp, reached ₹30 crore, up 213% year-on-year. Core businesses generated ₹119 crore in adjusted Ebitda over the past three quarters, up 175%.
“Our core businesses are now getting more profitable, expanding margins,” Bhal said. India consumer services’ adjusted Ebitda margin rose 110 basis points to 3.5% of NTV, while the international business’s margin increased 190 basis points to 2%.
InstaHelp orders rose 63% sequentially to 6.23 million, but net order value fell to ₹114 from ₹138 in the June quarter. Its adjusted Ebitda loss widened to ₹174 crore, taking consolidated adjusted Ebitda to a loss of ₹144 crore. Loss per order narrowed to ₹279 from ₹346.
“I don’t think the losses are high because of competitive intensity. Losses are high because we are choosing to keep them high,” Bhal said. “We are choosing to invest from a position of strength.”
About 45% of new users in markets where InstaHelp operates alongside core services now come through the offering. Customers include households needing replacement or additional help and younger consumers who book cleaning periodically instead of employing daily help.
Bhal said the category would need to become a primary source of household help to grow substantially, a shift he does not expect over the next three to five years.
Urban Company’s steady-state model envisages pricing of about ₹200 an hour and an average 1.5-hour booking generating ₹300 in NTV. At payouts of about ₹150 an hour to professionals, the balance would cover other operating costs. Current prices remain low, and some orders could decline as pricing normalizes.
InstaHelp could also drive more frequent app use, supporting Urban Company’s ambition to become “the trusted home platform for Indian consumers, almost the operating system for the Indian home”, Bhal said.
“The top of the funnel is not the challenge,” he said of supply. The focus is on recruiting, training and retaining professionals, improving their earnings and maintaining service quality. Urban Company said supply-demand balance had improved, though demand still exceeds supply in some local markets. It has also launched instant services in the UAE and Singapore.
The company retained its target of consolidated adjusted Ebitda breakeven by the third quarter of fiscal ywar 2028 (FY28) and adjusted Ebitda of ₹1,000 crore by FY31.
Urban Company’s board approved a qualified institutional placement of up to ₹2,500 crore, subject to shareholder approval. It ended September with ₹1,901 crore in cash and treasury investments.
Bhal said the fundraise would provide strategic flexibility over the next five to 10 years, rather than meet immediate needs or simply finance InstaHelp’s losses.
“The very definition of flexibility is that the sooner you do it, the more flexibility,” he said.
The capital could fund acquisitions across India consumer services, Native and international markets, either consolidating existing markets or enabling entry into new categories. No deal is imminent, Bhal said. Asked about acquisitions in instant house-help, he said, “You never say never, but highly unlikely.”
Urban Company is exploring residential air conditioners under Native, Mint reported in April. Drawing on more than a decade of servicing and repairing air conditioners, Bhal said the next one to two years would focus on learning and consumer feedback, with initial distribution concentrated on the app.
The company handles roughly 10 times as many air-conditioner servicing, repair and installation orders as water-purifier orders. Bhal said the launch should not materially delay Native’s path to profitability, noting that research and development accounts for a substantial part of its current adjusted Ebitda loss.
Urban Company is also testing InstaHelp Gold, a premium offering. Bhal said initial results were promising but did not disclose rollout numbers or customer feedback metrics.
Vaeshnavi reports on the business of consumption from Bengaluru, tracking how India shops, eats, and clicks. As a correspondent with Mint’s consumer economy team, she covers sectors ranging from retail and food and beverage to the rapid rise of quick commerce. She is a 2025 graduate of the Asian College of Journalism’s Bloomberg Business and Finance programme. She joined the Mint newsroom in May 2025 and this is her first stint in journalism. She holds a bachelor's degree in accounting and finance from the University of Madras. Vaeshnavi loves storytelling and breaking down complex jargon and numbers to bring out insightful yet simple-to-understand narratives. She is a Malayali but has spent most of her life living in Chennai. During her school days, she was an avid debater and loved participating in anything that involved holding a mic and standing on stage talking to a room filled with people. A diehard SRK fan, she can be found vibing to Indie music and Bollywood songs in her free time. She is a self-confessed cold coffee addict who won’t let a day pass without one, and is always café-hopping in search of the city’s best brew.
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