Many Indian start-ups, engaged in fierce competition and consolidation, are now increasingly collaborating with corporate majors to provide them services that different vendors used to provide them previously, thus creating new sources of revenue.

Earlier, the corporate majors would engage different vendors for various services; now they are increasingly engaging start-ups. Some of them, like Aasaanjobs, even provide recruitment services.

“Our move has been very encouraging over the last one year. Although our focus remains on B2C, the new vertical, B2B, now accounts for some 30 per cent of our total revenue from 20-25 major clients,” Debadutta Upadhyaya, Founder of Timesaverz, told BusinessLine .

Mumbai-based Timesaverz provides services like electronic installation, furniture assembly, painting jobs etc, to individuals as well as big corporates, she said, while declining to identify the clients.

Fund raising Timesaverz raised its seed-round of funding in October 2014. Unilazer invested ₹15 crore into this on-demand home services platform. The last couple of years have witnessed an emergence of a whole new category of on-demand service providing start-ups.

These include security, home maintenance, electrical fittings and plumbing, fire safety, and event photography, etc.

Their gradual ‘movement’ from B2C to B2B has now matured and is seen as ‘invading’ the space these corporates had for time-tested vendors of various services. In these start-ups, they find various services under one roof, without hassles.

OneTimeJobs.com, a Bengaluru-based resource aggregator, has tied up with major players like MTS, DHL, Mudra Lifestyle, Motorola etc, to offer a bouquet of services including civil engineering, pest control, demarcation of areas, one-time cleaning, one-time security, event organising and guarding services, legal services, office automation, biometric services, and background verification. “These corporate biggies are contracting with start-ups for end-to-end services, provided by us under one roof,” said Prashant Rai, founder and CEO of OneTimeJobs.com, adding his firm plans to double the number of cities to 20.

He said start-ups usually outsource 70 per cent of the work order they get, and finish 30 per cent from their own resources and teams, particularly in one-time jobs.

Intrusion? Siddhartha Das, Head of Investors’ Relations and Corporate Development, Asaanjobs, said his start-up is facilitating recruitment services to companies like Uber, Shoppers’ Stop and a Tata subsidiary. “Big corporates are taking start-ups seriously and positively.”

Shaifali Holani, Founder and CEO of EasyFix.com, agreed that some of the start-ups are ‘intruding’ the vendors’ space. “We are providing post-sales services for many consumer durable brands. Pan-India, 55 brands are associated with us.”

Related Topics
comment COMMENT NOW