Raghav ChandraCO-FOUNDER, URBANCLAP

At 25, One of The Most Promising Entrepreneurs

Raghav Chandra along with Varun Khaitan and Abhiraj Bhal , founded UrbanClap, positioned itself as a one-stop destination for trusted professional and home services. UrbanClap claims to connect their users to the best professionals who can do exactly what they want at a price they are comfortable paying.

UrbanClap was not a beginner’s luck for Chandra, who left his job at Twitter in the US to return to India to solve what he says the problems that were more personal to him and which he could relate to. With the backing of his Computer Engineering degree from UC Berkeley and working experience, he started his ride-sharing platform, which he had to shut down after 6 months.

The entrepreneur bug had bitten him by then, and the stage of toying around with other ideas started. It was then that he was introduced, to Varun Khaitan and Abhiraj Bhal, the trio launched UrbanClap in October 2014.

“They wanted someone in core tech, and in my experience, I thought it would be great to have someone to partner with. It’s a very lonely journey if you start alone, especially if your ambitions are really big,” Chandra says.

UrbanClap has Bessemer Venture Partners, SAIF Partners and Accel Partners among its investors, with business tycoon Ratan Tata being the latest addition.

After raising US$12 million across two rounds from SAIF and Accel, UrbanClap raised US$25 million in Series B round of funding, led by Bessemer.

Raghav Chandra’s advice to entrepreneurs: “Don’t brainstorm, that’s the stupidest thing you can do. You need to go through your experiences to figure things out.”