Synopsis
Urban Company's InstaHelp service saw rapid growth in the March quarter. This expansion led to a significant increase in net losses. The company is investing heavily to build out this on-demand domestic help segment. Despite the losses, Urban Company plans to continue its investment strategy. Competition in this market is also intensifying.The at-home services platform reported a 57-fold jump in net loss to Rs 161 crore in the March quarter of FY26, from Rs 2.8 crore a year earlier, as it ramped up spending on the on-demand domestic help segment. Revenue from operations rose 43% year-on-year to Rs 425.5 crore from Rs 298.4 crore a year earlier.
Bhal said InstaHelp was scaling rapidly and remained its most aggressive investment, adding that the vertical had grown from near-zero at the start of FY26 to about 2.7 million orders and Rs 40 crore in NTV by the end of the March quarter, with March alone crossing 1.1 million orders.
“We expect InstaHelp burn to remain elevated over the next few quarters as we prioritise densification, broader micro-market coverage, and accelerated partner onboarding,” he noted in the letter.
“Our framework for calibrating burn is anchored to a few leading indicators: consumer retention and order frequency, partner utilisation, NTV growth and loss per order trajectory. As long as these signals trend in the right direction, we will continue to invest behind scale; if they weaken, we will pull back on pace. We are in a strong position to fund this phase,” he added.
Urban Company’s total NTV for the quarter stood at Rs 1,148 crore, up 42% year-on-year.
“InstaHelp can become a large, strategically important vertical, and we are deliberately investing ahead of the curve to capture that opportunity,” he added.
The company said InstaHelp’s rapid expansion sharply weighed on profitability. Orders for the service climbed to 1.1 million in March from around 625,000 in December. The scale-up comes amid intensifying competition in the instant domestic help segment, with rival Snabbit also crossing 1 million bookings in March, while Pronto recorded 500,000 orders during the month.
InstaHelp posted an adjusted Ebitda loss of Rs 119 crore in the quarter.
“Q4 adjusted EBITDA loss (for InstaHelp) was Rs 119 crore, reflecting two-sided subsidies to densify the network, supply onboarding, and marketing for new trials,” the letter said, adding that losses are expected to remain elevated over the coming quarters.
