Seekster, a cleaning and maintenance service startup, has received 15 million baht in seed funding from three big investors: Digital Venture, DTAC Accelerate and 500 TukTuks.
The move aims to capitalise on the maintenance service and renovation market in Thailand as it enters the property tech market through a partnership with Ananda Development.
"The funding enables Seekster to expand to corporations, moving vertically into condominiums, hotels and room-sharing service businesses like Agoda Home and Airbnb," said Sahib Anandsongvit, chief executive and one of three co-founders of Seekster.
The company expanded its target customers from individuals to small businesses, securing more than 250 of the latter.
"Condominiums have higher potential as their services are related to the urbanisation trend. We partnered with Ananda to serve 50,000 of their units," Mr Sahib said.
Seekster wants to be the market leader by 2018 through expanding service to major cities like Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, and suburban Bangkok.
The company plans to increase its staff from 3,500 professionals such as housekeepers and air-conditioning technicians to 15,000 in 2018.
"By the first quarter next year, we will add a full stack of services to tap into the property tech market," Mr Sahib said.
Joez Charanwattanakit, Seekster chief marketing officer and co-founder, said service starts from 450 baht for housekeeping, rising to 10,000 baht for renovation.
"Our internal research estimates the market for cleaning and maintenance services along with renovation of property in Thailand at US$36 billion (1.19 trillion baht), based on the number of households and purchasing power," Mr Joez said.
Bangkok has 5.5 million households and 15 million air conditioners in use, some 2.5 air conditioners per household.
Seekster expects to increase transactions (gross service value) from 35-40 million baht in 2017 to 70 million in 2018. The company earns revenue from commission fees of 10-30%, which enables service professionals to earn three times higher income, Mr Joez said.
Sompoat Chansomboon, director of DTAC Accelerate, said Seekster, a DTAC startup, can access 23 million of DTAC's telecom customers nationwide and should be able to expand to overseas markets through Telenor Group's customers, in particular in Myanmar and Malaysia.