Lachy Groom backs Indian startup Pronto in $20 million deal

Pronto, an Indian startup operating an on-demand home services platform—which connects households with service workers for everyday tasks—has secured $20 million in funding from Silicon Valley solo investor Lachy Groom. The investment serves as an extension of Pronto’s Series B round, which is a growth-stage financing round, and values the company at $200 million. The deal came together following a meeting in February between Groom and Pronto founder Anjali Sardana. The introduction was arranged by Paul Hudson, the founder of Glade Brook Capital, an investment firm that has backed both Pronto and Physical Intelligence, where Groom is a co-founder.

The capital injection arrives as the Indian on-demand home services market faces rapid growth. According to estimates from Bank of America, the market could grow into a $15 billion to $18 billion industry by the end of the decade. Currently, the market share is highly concentrated, with Pronto trailing its main competitors:

• Snabbit: about 40% market share
• Urban Company: about 40% market share
• Pronto: around a 20% share

Despite trailing its larger rivals, Pronto is scaling its operations. The startup’s daily bookings grew from around 18,000 bookings a day to 26,000. To support this expansion, Pronto increased its network of service workers to 6,500, up from 1,440 in January. Groom noted that the operational challenges of organizing domestic labor in India are significant. “The work underneath that is genuinely hard, and most attempts in adjacent categories have struggled with the operational discipline,” said Groom, who is a solo investor. He added that the team was operating at a level he had not seen elsewhere in the category.

Sardana, who founded Pronto in 2025, emphasized that Groom’s investment approach is heavily centered on the individual leader. She noted that Groom focuses almost entirely on the founder, with that representing 95% of the decision, and that he will invest if he loves the founder, while the rest of the decision rests on the scale and potential of the business.

Why it matters

Pronto’s funding highlights the rapid growth and intense competition in India’s on-demand home services market, where startups are racing to capture a multi-billion dollar opportunity.