LONDON: One Indian entrepreneur‘s new startup is generating global investor interest as it is one of the first companies of its kind worldwide to offer consumers the ability to book plumbers, electricians and other services using its unique conversational artificial intelligence (AI) software. Anuj Gupta’s GreenVan recently opened for a funding round and uses a simple WhatsApp interface. It is designed as an ‘Amazon of Services’ offering that aims to change the way people book essential tasks online.
It grew out of Gupta’s own experience of moving from the US to Britain about five years ago, and finding the experience of finding reliable trade people a rather cumbersome word-of-mouth process.
“We were often let down in pursuit of traders and were hit by a system that was too idiosyncratic,” Gupta, who is in his mid-40s, told PTI in an interview.
“As I delved deeper into the sector, I just found more and more problems, largely because 87 percent of it was driven by small shops – classically one owner and one or two staff. It’s very, very fragmented, more so than even the mini-cab industry in the days before Uber,” he said.
His research showed that despite all the inefficiencies, he had entered a very lucrative market with huge profits. In Britain, the market is estimated at $120 billion, with profits of $20 billion, he said.
“We could see that the time was right to inject the technology and make it efficient, at a time when conversational AI was becoming available from the borders of the mainstream,” he explained.
The graduate of St. Stephen’s, Delhi University, who went on to complete an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School, believed that practical life experiences have played a huge role in his entrepreneurial journey.
GreenVan was then born in 2020, just before the COVID pandemic hit, and was in a fortuitous pilot phase at a time when the world was embracing technology as more and more things moved online. Gupta’s team has since spent the past few years perfecting GreenVan’s on-boarding calling technology.
“It’s not about telling ‘John’ to do what he’s been doing for 30 years, whether it’s fixing boilers or taps. He’s been doing that for 30 years. The big change was the fact that our conversation engine We were able to onboard thousands of customers on one platform. So we onboarded more than 50,000 customers in that whole phase of perfecting the AI,” said Gupta.
His focus was on keeping the interface as simple as possible, allowing consumers to book regular tasks such as moving or repairs with simple messages to WhatsApp. Because GreenVan employs hundreds of these specialists, they claim to be able to offer competitive rates and also offer the professionals a guaranteed income. The market trial in 15 cities across Britain included London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Nottingham, covering thousands of transactions through more than 100 contractors while refining the booking process.
“So essentially we are consolidating the commerce sector, which is a very large industry worth $1.7 trillion globally, and $120 billion in Britain – making it 10 times the size of Uber,” said Gupta.
After launching in Britain, GreenVan has its eyes on the American market in the coming months and even India a few years later. “I’m from India and that’s why I would like to look at India. But I think the ecosystem there is not ready yet because the predictability of traffic, transaction value, credit card and smartphone penetration all have to be at a certain level .to penetrate at the mass level. So Britain is a great incubator and the next mature market would be the US,” he said.
“We read all around us that the climate is collapsing, that democracy is dying and that the problems are spreading. But I believe there is a better future. I believe we can use human intelligence for the betterment of the common man,” he said. .
With GreenVan, Gupta hopes to have found that perfect harmony between human and artificial intelligence. And as part of its green agenda, the company’s policies include offering eco-friendly companies like themselves to advertise for free on their fleet of electric vans used by their contractors.
It grew out of Gupta’s own experience of moving from the US to Britain about five years ago, and finding the experience of finding reliable trade people a rather cumbersome word-of-mouth process.
“We were often let down in pursuit of traders and were hit by a system that was too idiosyncratic,” Gupta, who is in his mid-40s, told PTI in an interview.
“As I delved deeper into the sector, I just found more and more problems, largely because 87 percent of it was driven by small shops – classically one owner and one or two staff. It’s very, very fragmented, more so than even the mini-cab industry in the days before Uber,” he said.
His research showed that despite all the inefficiencies, he had entered a very lucrative market with huge profits. In Britain, the market is estimated at $120 billion, with profits of $20 billion, he said.
“We could see that the time was right to inject the technology and make it efficient, at a time when conversational AI was becoming available from the borders of the mainstream,” he explained.
The graduate of St. Stephen’s, Delhi University, who went on to complete an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School, believed that practical life experiences have played a huge role in his entrepreneurial journey.
GreenVan was then born in 2020, just before the COVID pandemic hit, and was in a fortuitous pilot phase at a time when the world was embracing technology as more and more things moved online. Gupta’s team has since spent the past few years perfecting GreenVan’s on-boarding calling technology.
“It’s not about telling ‘John’ to do what he’s been doing for 30 years, whether it’s fixing boilers or taps. He’s been doing that for 30 years. The big change was the fact that our conversation engine We were able to onboard thousands of customers on one platform. So we onboarded more than 50,000 customers in that whole phase of perfecting the AI,” said Gupta.
His focus was on keeping the interface as simple as possible, allowing consumers to book regular tasks such as moving or repairs with simple messages to WhatsApp. Because GreenVan employs hundreds of these specialists, they claim to be able to offer competitive rates and also offer the professionals a guaranteed income. The market trial in 15 cities across Britain included London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Nottingham, covering thousands of transactions through more than 100 contractors while refining the booking process.
“So essentially we are consolidating the commerce sector, which is a very large industry worth $1.7 trillion globally, and $120 billion in Britain – making it 10 times the size of Uber,” said Gupta.
After launching in Britain, GreenVan has its eyes on the American market in the coming months and even India a few years later. “I’m from India and that’s why I would like to look at India. But I think the ecosystem there is not ready yet because the predictability of traffic, transaction value, credit card and smartphone penetration all have to be at a certain level .to penetrate at the mass level. So Britain is a great incubator and the next mature market would be the US,” he said.
“We read all around us that the climate is collapsing, that democracy is dying and that the problems are spreading. But I believe there is a better future. I believe we can use human intelligence for the betterment of the common man,” he said. .
With GreenVan, Gupta hopes to have found that perfect harmony between human and artificial intelligence. And as part of its green agenda, the company’s policies include offering eco-friendly companies like themselves to advertise for free on their fleet of electric vans used by their contractors.
