Indian online classifieds firm Quickr has acquired beauty services platform Salosa, in a bid to expand its home services vertical. The Bangalore-based company, whose 2015 series H funding round valued it at $892 million, says the purchase is part of a Rs2.5bn ($37.5m) QuikrServices solution that will cement its growing market dominance.
Salosa, launched just last September by former Proctor & Gamble employees Piyush Dhananka and Anurag Nair, claims to bring the ‘salon at your doorstep’. It works in capital city Delhi and nearby Gargaon with a team of in-house beauticians.
The acquisition will help QuickServices approach a domestic market opportunity it estimates at $5bn and growing. “On-demand beauty service is an important sub-category and Salosa will help bring very real benefits to our consumers,” said Quickr digital strategist PD Sundar. QuikrServices has 250,000 service providers offering over 80 types of consumer services, and is used by 100,000 customers daily, its parent company added.
Quickr, founded in 2008, has quickly become one of India’s leading online portals. It has raised almost $350m from top venture funds like Tiger Global Management and Norwest Venture Partners. The company has already made big-spending inroads into automobiles, customer-to-customer sales, jobs and real estate. Regarding the latter, Quikr bought portal Commonfloor for $120m in January.
The company is one of a huge number of successes this year for a national IT industry set to grow by 12-14% this year. Morgan Stanley recently reported that Indian firms received $6.6bn of venture capital and private equity last year, an increase of 50% on 2014.
Its e-commerce firms should be especially buoyed: the number of Indian e-shoppers is set to rise from 50m this year to 320m in 2020, with a market estimated at $119bn by that time. “Per capita incomes are likely to double by 2025 and this should drive higher aspirations of the Indian consumer,” the Morgan Stanley report added.