Pronto’s house-help platform in India sees valuation soar 8x within a year

Bengaluru-based startup Pronto is working to digitize India’s largely informal domestic help market. As daily bookings continue to rise and its footprint expands into more cities, investors are increasingly confident in the business.

On Tuesday, the company said it had raised a $25 million Series B round led by Epiq Capital, valuing the nine-month-old startup at $100 million. That marks a sharp jump from its $45 million valuation in August 2025 and represents more than an eightfold increase from the $12.5 million valuation it held when it came out of stealth in May. Existing investors Glade Brook Capital, General Catalyst, and Bain Capital Ventures also joined the round, bringing Pronto’s total funding to roughly $40 million.

Pronto provides fast, standardized services for routine household tasks, ranging from mopping floors to cleaning utensils, with trained, background-verified workers available on demand.

The startup says it can send workers in around 10 minutes across several of its micromarkets, or serviceable zones within the cities where it operates, placing it closer to quick-commerce models than traditional home-services businesses. Every worker, whom Pronto refers to as a “Pro,” undergoes in-person training and background checks before taking bookings and is assigned to structured shifts designed to deliver steadier income than the informal arrangements that typically define the sector.

Founder Anjali Sardana said in an interview that Pronto now handles 18,000 bookings daily, a significant increase from about 1,000 last year. She added that the median time between a customer’s first and second booking is only 2 days, while the platform’s top 10% of users place 9 or more orders each month. According to Sardana, the company is aiming to reach 70,000 daily bookings by June.

Pronto has also expanded rapidly across geographies. Sardana said the startup has grown from operating in one city to 10, including Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, and has expanded from five micromarkets to more than 150 over the past seven months. Even so, a large share of its activity is still concentrated in a relatively small number of markets, with the National Capital Region, which includes the cities surrounding New Delhi, accounting for roughly half of all bookings.

Sardana said Pronto has only just begun to scratch the surface of India’s mostly offline domestic services market, where hiring still largely takes place through informal connections and word-of-mouth networks. “I still believe that 99.99% of this market is completely offline,” she said. “In aggregate, less than 100,000 people are using a service like this per day, while tens of millions of households rely on offline arrangements.”

Industry research supports that view. A report from Redseer Strategy Consultants valued the overall home services market at around ₹5,100 to ₹5,210 billion, or roughly $56 billion to $57 billion, in fiscal year 2025. Yet the online share of that market remained below 1% of net transaction value, underscoring the dominance of offline hiring channels. At the same time, the digital segment, while still small, is projected to expand at an annual compound rate of 18% to 22% through fiscal year 2030, driven by rising incomes, urbanization, and a growing preference for urban living and convenience.

Building the workforce

Pronto currently works with 4,500 active professionals on its platform, and Sardana said about 99% of them are women. She added that workers who complete roughly 20 days of shifts each month earn a median income of ₹23,000 to ₹25,000, or around $251 to $273. Monthly worker retention is above 70%. Even so, the company continues to face more demand than it can meet immediately, with bookings increasing by around 20% week over week, according to Sardana.

Pronto’s unit economics are still taking shape as the company pushes into newer markets. Sardana said the startup is seeing “very positive green shoots” in its oldest micromarkets in Gurugram, where contribution margins have already turned positive. However, newer markets are still in an investment phase.

She also said Pronto has burned about $8 million so far and now has close to two years of runway after the latest funding round.

According to Sardana, the company plans to use the new capital primarily to onboard more professionals, strengthen its position in existing markets, and expand into additional cities. It is also testing new services, including cooking, car washing, and dog walking, while exploring other categories, including salon services. For now, however, its core offerings, including sweeping, mopping, and utensil cleaning, remain the platform’s most frequently used services.

The startup currently has a core team of around 60 employees, including about 1-16 people across engineering, product, and design. Marketing remains relatively lean, with only a small team focused on brand and performance, Sardana said.

The competition

Pronto operates in an increasingly competitive corner of India’s home services market, facing rivals including Snabbit and publicly traded Urban Company. Snabbit raised $30 million in late October at a $180 million valuation, more than doubling its value in five months, and reported around 830,000 orders in February, up from roughly 500,000 in December. Urban Company, meanwhile, said its platform crossed 50,000 daily bookings in February.

According to Sensor Tower data reviewed for the report, Pronto’s daily active users increased by about 37% to roughly 101,000 between late January and late February. Over the same stretch, Snabbit’s daily active users rose by about 30% to around 93,000.

Sardana said Pronto remains centred on maintaining service quality as competition intensifies. “At the end of the day, customers will come to the platform that provides the highest quality service,” she said.