Lachy Groom, one of Silicon Valley’s most high-profile individual investors, decided to back Indian startup Pronto just 20 minutes after his first meeting with the 24-year-old founder.
At this meeting held in February, Interconnected, Groom invested $20 million in Pronto as an extension of its Series B round, valuing the startup at $200 million after the investment. That’s double its value two months ago, as TechCrunch previously reported. The deal was closed within a matter of weeks and saw the participation of a private investor as the Bengaluru-based startup expands to meet the growing demand for on-demand home services in India.
The groom said he was drawn to Pronto’s ambition to build the world’s largest platform for organizing domestic work, starting with India’s vast and largely unstructured workforce. “The work down there is really difficult and most attempts in adjacent categories have struggled with operational discipline,” he said. Pronto founder Anjali Sardana (pictured above) and her team operate “at a level not seen anywhere else in this space,” he added.
Before founding Pronto in 2025, Sardana worked at Bain Capital and venture firm 8VC, where he gained early experience in investing and high-growth startups. The startup connects households and workers for everyday tasks such as cleaning and basic household services.
The introduction came through Paul Hudson, founder of Glade Brook Capital, who connected Groome and Sadhana during a trip to San Francisco earlier this year. Glade Brook supported startups founded by Pronto, led by Sardana, and Physical Intelligence, co-founded by Groom. Hudson and Groom also backed Indian rapid commerce startup Zepto.
Sardana said Groom’s investment approach is founder-centric. “He indexes two things: one is the founder and that’s 95%. If he loves the founder, he’ll invest,” she told TechCrunch, adding that the rest depends on the size and potential of the business.
Groom’s bet comes as startups in India are racing to build instant home service platforms. This category is seeing rapid adoption in urban homes as more consumers opt for on-demand support for their daily tasks.
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Opportunity is important. A recent Bank of America report reviewed by TechCrunch estimates that India’s instant home services market could grow to a $15 billion to $18 billion industry by the end of 2010 as companies including Pronto, Snabbit and Urban Company’s InstaHelp compete for share in the fast-growing category.
Competition is intensifying, especially due to massive capital inflows and aggressive pricing to attract new users. Bank of America estimates that Snabit and Urban Company’s InstaHelp each have about 40% of the market, while Pronto has about a 20% share, even though it is expanding rapidly. This category is expected to remain a “high burn volume” category for the next two to three years.
Despite keeping up with its larger competitors, Pronto expanded quickly, growing from about 18,000 bookings per day to 26,000 in just one month. The startup is focused on driving repeat usage and is confident that turning occasional demand into habit-based usage will be key to winning the category, with the top 10% of users accounting for around 40% of bookings.
This growth has brought challenges, especially when it comes to expanding supply. Pronto expanded its service worker network from 1,440 to 6,500 in January. But Sardana said forecasting and capacity management are becoming key challenges as startups grow, as demand continues to outpace supply.
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