Home services firm NexDo prepares for Australian expansion

NexDo founder Sakshin Niranjan says the coronavirus pandemic has been beneficial for his firms as more Kiwis look to work on demand and supplement their incomes. Photo / Supplied

On-demand home-services business NexDo is gearing up for its biggest capital injection yet as it prepares to make the move across the ditch and expand its local offering.

Auckland-based NexDo, which books lawn mowing, cleaning and junk removal services through its app, has raised $2.5 million in seed funds this year and will raise more than that when it kicks off its series A round next month.

Earlier this year, NexDo expanded its services into Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Tauranga shortly after it closed its seed round of funding through VC firm Maker Partners. Prior to that, it had been operating in Auckland only, following its inception in 2020.

NexDo can be compared to the likes of Uber and other ride-sharing platforms - but for the trades and services industry, offering on-demand jobs for gig-economy workers. It takes a 20 per cent commission fee on all orders booked and claims to offer services cheaper than available elsewhere in the market.

NexDo founder Sakshin Niranjan told the Herald the next step for the firm was launching into Australia and building a team there once it had raised fresh capital.

He would not disclose how much NexDo was seeking to raise in its latest round.

"We're hoping to close it, hopefully, in the next six months, which will allow us to launch into new cities and grow into current markets," said Niranjan.

"The vision of the business is to bring more service entrepreneurs onboard the platform as a different way of making money."

Niranjan said NexDo was gearing up for a busy few months as Kiwis got into the swing of spring cleaning ahead of the warmer weather. He said the Kingsland business had been better received than he had hoped.

Following investment from Maker Partners in January, NexDo expanded nationwide, moved into new categories (junk removal, pest control) and hired an additional eight staff in its management, operations, tech and marketing teams.

More than 450 entrepreneurs work with the platform and each month its bookings are growing between 20-30 per cent.

Niranjan said the coronavirus pandemic had been a "blessing" for NexDo, as more Kiwis signed on as they looked for more flexibility and autonomy in their work.

"Covid has helped us onboard most of these service entrepreneurs; a lot of them lost their jobs or lost business and this was the right time to introduce a model like this ... a lot of people initially started off as part-time contractors with us and we know so many who have given up their jobs to join us full time," he said.

"When noticed there was a big shift in the market and [have changed] how we since started onboarding our service entrepreneurs.

"We realised there was [an opportunity] so what we started doing was we literally started setting up the entire business ecosystem for them; setting them up for tax, for buying equipment, sort of setting up a micro franchise for them. We have now started building that model for free for anyone who works in these industries of the services we offer."

The home and commercial cleaning industry is estimated to be worth $2 billion in New Zealand. Combined with pest removal services, lawn mowing, car and exterior house cleaning, NexDo believes there is a $5b market opportunity for it to tap into.

It reckons it can capture more than 1 per cent of that market share.

Currently, six-figure revenue is traded through the platform on a monthly basis, and in December it exceeded $1 million in sales revenue for the first time.

"We are now focused on building our categories out, and we're also trying to go into other markets and smaller cities after we have accomplished the numbers we want to. We want to build in new features to the technology too, such as split payments."

Home cleaning is by far NexDo's biggest category for bookings, followed by junk removal, which has become its fast-growing category.