Tiger Global-backed Indian startup Urban Company filed for an initial public offering of 19 billion rupees ($223 million), its draft papers released on Monday showed.
Urban Company, which provides mobile app-based beauty and home care services, will raise up to 4.29 billion rupees by selling new shares, while existing investors plan to offload stock worth 14.71 billion rupees.
The planned funds from selling new shares are lower than the 5.28 billion rupees limit secured by its board, according to a regulatory filing, and comes amid market volatility spurred by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies.
The market volatility led Bengaluru-based e-scooter maker Ather Energy todownsize its IPO, while LG Electronics’ Indian unit has delayed its public float.
Urban Company plans to use more than half of the funds raised from new shares for developing tech offerings, and the rest largely for office leases and marketing.
The online services aggregator operates in 59 cities across India, UAE and Saudi Arabia. It gets 86% of its revenue from domestic operations.
The firm, also backed by Bessemer Venture Partners, joins a list of Indian startups that are looking to or have already filed to go public, such as Physics Wallah, PhonePe and Flipkart.
Gurugram-based Urban Company turned profitable in the previous financial year, reporting a pre-tax profit of 271.4 million rupees in the nine months to December 2024, compared with a loss of 577.7 million rupees a year earlier.
A tax credit helped the company report an overall profit of 2.43 billion rupees for the period.
Domestic private equity firms Accel India and Elevation Capital, Urban Company’s earliest backers and top shareholders with a stake of 10.5% and 10.8%, respectively, will collectively sell shares worth 7.79 billion rupees.
Kotak Mahindra Capital, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JM Financials are the lead bankers for Urban Company’s primary share issuance.
($1 = 85.1700 Indian rupees)
Reuters
