Silicon Valley investor Lachy Groom committed $20 million to Indian startup Pronto after spending just 20 minutes with the company’s founder during their first meeting earlier this year, as the Bengaluru-based startup expands in India’s growing on-demand home services market.
The investment was made as an extension of Pronto’s Series B round and valued the company at $200 million after the financing, doubling its valuation from just over two months earlier.
The meeting between Groom and Pronto founder Anjali Sardana took place in February through a mutual connection. The deal was finalized within weeks.
Pronto operates a platform that connects households with workers for services including cleaning and other everyday domestic tasks.
Groom said he was attracted to the company’s effort to organize India’s large and largely unstructured domestic labor market through technology and operational systems.
“The work underneath that is genuinely hard, and most attempts in adjacent categories have struggled with the operational discipline,” Groom said. He added that Sardana and her team were operating “at a level I haven’t seen elsewhere in this space.”
Founder Background And Investor Connections
Before launching Pronto in 2025, Sardana worked at Bain Capital and venture firm 8VC, where she gained experience in investing and startup operations.
The introduction between Sardana and Groom was arranged by Paul Hudson during Sardana’s visit to San Francisco earlier this year.
Glade Brook Capital has invested in both founders’ companies, including Pronto and Physical Intelligence, where Groom is a co-founder. Hudson and Groom have also invested in Indian quick-commerce startup Zepto.
Sardana said Groom’s investment style is highly focused on founders themselves.
“He indexes two things. One is the founder, and that’s 95% of it. If he loves the founder, then he will invest,” Sardana told TechCrunch. She added that the remaining factor involves the scale and long-term market opportunity.
India’s Instant Home Services Market Expands
Pronto’s funding arrives as competition intensifies among Indian startups building rapid-response home services platforms for urban consumers.
A recent Bank of America report reviewed by TechCrunch estimated that India’s instant home services market could grow into a $15 billion to $18 billion industry by the end of the decade.
Several companies are competing in the category, including Pronto, Snabbit, and Urban Company’s InstaHelp platform.
According to the Bank of America analysis, Snabbit and InstaHelp each currently hold roughly 40% market share, while Pronto controls about 20% as it continues scaling operations.
The report also stated that companies in the sector are expected to continue spending heavily over the next two to three years as they compete for users through pricing incentives and expansion efforts.
Rapid Growth Creates Supply Challenges
Pronto has expanded quickly in recent months. The company increased daily bookings from approximately 18,000 to 26,000 in slightly more than one month.
The startup is focusing heavily on repeat customer usage, with its top 10% of users generating around 40% of total bookings.
At the same time, rapid growth has created operational challenges related to labor supply and capacity planning.
Pronto expanded its network of service workers to 6,500 from 1,440 in January. Sardana said demand continues to exceed available supply, making forecasting and workforce management increasingly important as the company grows.
Featured image credits: VepoClean Cleaning Services
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