Startup Circle: HappyLocate, one-stop relocation platform

Happylocate has served 30,000 plus relocation requests to date, Founded by Ajay Tiwari and Sainadh Duvvuru in 2016. It has a network of over 700+ verified movers and 20,000+ hotels across the country. The brand is already serving a lot of marquee brands like Coca-Cola, United Breweries, Britannia, Titan, Quess Corp, ITC Infotech, Spar, and Western Union. HappyLocate has raised Rs 4.4 crore in the Pre-Series A round, led by Inflection Point Ventures (IPV) with participation from VM Ventures.

At CIOL, Ajay Tiwari, Co-Founder, and CEO, HappyLocate has shared his insight on how HappyLocate provides a diverse range of relocation services like packers and movers for household goods relocation, commercial relocation, logistic relocation, and other value-added services.

Tell us about Happylocate and your offerings. Tell us about the team

HappyLocate is a one-stop relocation platform to book movers, stays, and settling services. Built to cater to all corporate relocation requirements, Happy locate is revolutionizing global mobility by transforming relocations with an AI-based relocation management system making it Better, Faster and Cheaper.

• Our Tech-driven Operational Control ensures 96% on-time delivery, 95% damage-free relocations and 18-24% Cost Savings
• Our X-SaaS for corporates automates end-to-end Employee Relocation Management & Laptop Deliveries with an in-built approval system, quote comparison, policy-based self-booking platform & analytics-driven cost-control.

We are currently associated with over 600 people and helping them change the way India relocates. After 3 years of commercial operations, we have earned 17 Crs of GTV, 60 marquee Clients, and a partner base of 650 to service 15000+ Pin Codes across India. We have recently started our international relocation services in the US, Canada, the Middle East, Japan & Singapore.

Founded by Sainadh Duvvuru and me in 2016 with an aim to transform the relocation experience, Happylocate has served 30,000+ relocation requests to date. With our exhaustive network of 700+ verified movers and 20000+ hotels across the country and over 80+ employees, we currently stand for an unalterable commitment to uniformity in experience across geographies.

What are some of the challenges Happylocate addresses during Relocation? How is Happylocate dealing with these Challenges?

What makes relocation as a problem more compelling, is its impact, on not just employers who are the customers, but employees as well who need to hop on multiple platforms for hotel, packing moving, house search, school search, and settling-in services.

Some of the challenges that we address during relocations via our services have been listed below:

• Employees: Most of the employees rely on google and local search platforms for low-cost packers and movers but usually end up getting unreliable vendors with inaccurate quotes and poor resolution in case of damage & delays.
• Employers/ corporates: With cooked-up claims, we have also seen employers losing lakhs of money due to false accusations and overbilling. So, to avoid such claims, companies spend hundreds of manpower hours and efforts on policies, keeping compliance/ legal teams on their toes, and managing thousands of mail trails manually. Such tedious tasks at times lead to inefficiencies and therefore policy breaches.

HappyLocate, on the other hand, helps corporates automate and manage their end-to-end employee and asset relocations seamlessly and save 1/100th of the time taken. Otherwise, they usually end up facing 18 to 24% cost through Zero Cooked claims and Zero Policy Breach. Apart from that, all the damages and delays that our clients face getting covered in our ‘HL Assurance program’ - that not just ensures your households but also assures your experience as well.

How does Happylocate protect Customer’s interest in packing moving services?

We help corporates automate and manage end-to-end Employee Relocations with policy reinforcements and In-built approval flow. The employees of these corporates can easily book our services through a self-booking platform as per their company policy.

With our best-in-class services, our corporate clients can manage even 100 relocations in less than a minute with 18-24% cost savings, 72 Hr resolution TAT & Zero cooked-up claims. Our tech-driven operational control ensures 96% on-time delivery and 95% damage-free relocations.

How has your revenue grown with the brand evolving during the pandemic?

We have several revenue streams, which not only boost our gross margins but also ensure the model's stability. In fact, we recently introduced Asset/Laptop Deliveries, Office Relocations & Storage Services that further optimized our existing vendor Partner Base. We continued acquiring Corporates & were amongst the first, to not just experience a V-Shape recovery, but grow every passing month.

We have conservatively grown 30% quarter on quarter and are now seeing pent-up demand from businesses with Back 2 Office scenarios. We have also seen that enterprises have been more receptive to digital solutions.

What sets you apart from your competitors?

Unlike other relocation players, Happylocate is a one-stop solution platform that integrates services through technology to provide corporates and consumers with convenience and control. Our laser-focused approach towards execution has led us to be India’s highest-rated relocation platform with 50% more efficient on damage and delay-free relocations.

In addition to this, we have some of India’s finest brands with us who avail of our services. Their testimonials are a clear validation that the perceived value is closest to what we have on offer. Thanks to our vision for the relocations in India, we can leverage our scale & technology to make service level commitments that the industry has never seen before. ".

We believe that it is our customer-obsessed approach, operational capabilities, and relocation management system that has set up a part in this industry.

What has 2021 changed for you? How are things now?

In 2021, we grew by 30 percent quarter on quarter and are now looking forward to impaneling 250 more corporates in the coming year. With this, we intend to increase our growth rate to 50% quarter on quarter.

Solutions that we built during 2021 -

1. We geared up our technology and expanded our tech team to remain relevant. We launched our Vendor Partner App for on-ground operational efficiency and further onboarded 100+ more reliable partners without increasing a single resource in Operations.
2. We introduced office relocations and warehouse storage facilities in our present corporate B2B business. We Started building flights a year earlier than planned for portfolio completion and seamless relocation to have an advantage when they travel opens up.
3. We also started the industry-first initiative of generating proactive quotes for InterCity, and Intra City Moves. This was done by introducing the concept of the Prime Service Partner Program for our Top Performing Partners who in return, guarantee the best quality service at competitive rates.

What are your growth priorities for 2022?

We are planning to onboard 300+ more enterprises to service them. With our back_2_office, our laser-focused approach is towards operational excellence and to sustain our position of being India’s highest-rated relocation platform.