Inside: Zimmber got acquired by Quikr
A home services startup Zimmber has been acquired by an online classified company Quikr India Pvt. Ltd. for about $10 million in an all stock deal with the motive to strengthen its position in the market. In the last one year, Zimmber is Quikr’s fourth acquisition. Last year, Quikr has also acquired home beauty startups Zalosa, Zapluk and Stayglad. An investment of about 250 Crore was committed by the company in January last year.
Zimmber is Quickr’s fourth acquisition in a year
In the year 2014 Gaurav Shrivastava, Anubhab Goel and Kumar founded Zimmber which raised $7.4 million from venture capital like IDG ventures, Omidyar Network, Aarin Capital, and some other investors like InMobi co-founder Naveen Tewari, Mohit Saxena & Amit Gupta and Praveen Sinha the managing director of Jabong. Zimmber was competing with biggies like Bro4u, Urbanclap and Housejoy in the hyperlocal services market.
Between June 2015 and March 2016, Quikr has also acquired another IDG venture portfolio firm, “Hiree” which is an online recruitment platform. Zimmber had itself undertaken on an acquisition spree by buying “Dhulai”, which is a laundry startup, a white collar service provider “Find Yahan “and “Glamnfit” a home beauty service provider.
Over the last two years, Quikr has been enlarging its operations with the help of five new segments, automobiles, real estate, jobs, customer sales, and services which help them to boost the sale. Quikr has been an active buyer of small rivals especially in the segments like real estate and home services as it strengthens the emerging revenues. In 2008, Quikr raised around $346 million from Kinnevik AB, Steadview Capital Management, Tiger Global, and Matrix Partners.
Even HDFC (Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd) is under the discussion with Quikr to sell their brokerage business HDFC reality and its digital business, HDFC Red in a deal of around 350-400 Crore. In the year end 31st March 2016, Quikr made net sales of rupees 41crore against Rs25 Crore the year before. The loss escalated from 450 Crore to 534 Crore during the same period as per the regulatory filings.
