Internet Ventures FIZ, an MCI Management Group fund whose shareholders include the National Capital Fund, has acquired a minority stake in HOJO Sp. z o.o. (HOJO.PL), an online marketplace of professional cleaning services. The company will benefit from a capital injection of up to PLN 2.5 million, with possible further recapitalisation by the fund with another PLN 4 million.
HOJO.PL is the first Online Cleaning Services Broker and Poland’s largest online platform connecting cleaning service providers with consumers and companies looking for professional cleaning services. It is also the largest free search engine for such services in the country. HOJO.PL users can contact affordable and reliable partners with a proven track record who offer top quality professional cleaning services. Over the last three years, the company has scaled up its business operations almost 10 times and attained a sales margin of several dozen percent. The investment of the Internet Ventures fund will help strengthen the company’s position as a market leader in Poland and prepare HOJO.PL’s business model for going international.
– “Our partnership with the MCI / Internet Ventures fund provides us with the opportunity to achieve added value in the form of technology know-how, which the fund will bring into the company. With this kind of support, together we will create an even better tool, enabling HOJO.PL to develop a first-choice online service on the Polish market of cleaning services. We share the same goal, which is increasing the market value of both the project and the company. I am convinced that the experience of our respective teams and the competences of MCI / Internet Ventures in implementing international investment projects will allow us to quickly expand our presence in foreign markets”, said Tomasz Wójkowski, President of HOJO Sp. z o.o.
In recent years, the sector of cleaning and organizing services in Poland has been undergoing dynamic development. It is now among the largest sectors of the market of services for companies and institutions, whose potential is estimated at ca. PLN 4 billion. As regards services provided to individual clients, the market value may exceed PLN 1.5 billion (source: HOJO.PL’s estimates). Growing demand for cleaning services is coupled with economic growth, increasing wealth and the society’s changing lifestyle, as well as the evolution of the attitudes of institutional clients, who now seem increasingly ready to outsource auxiliary activities. According to HOJO.PL’s data, the cleaning services market is growing at an average annual rate of ca. 20%.
The potential of the cleaning services sector has not gone unnoticed by such players as international funds. In recent years leading venture capital funds have made capital investments in the American companies Homejoy and Handybook.
– “HOJO.PL has developed a scalable business model with a significant degree of repeatability and country-wide extent. Thanks to numerous competitive advantages, the company has quickly advanced to the position of a leader of this market segment in Poland. The outsourcing of cleaning services has a significant growth potential, not only in Poland. HOJO.PL holds the key assets necessary to capitalise on that potential and to become a future leader in the region and in the European market”, said Tomasz Danis, Fund Manager at Internet Ventures FIZ.
Internet Ventures’ investment in HOJO.PL is yet another project implemented jointly with the National Capital Fund (NCF), which is the co-shareholder of several venture capital funds and in this capacity supports investment into young Polish companies encountering significant hurdles in terms of their financing possibilities due to the fact that they are at an early operational development stage and their economic results are uncertain.