Yaantra, Indian startup which offers doorstep repair services and sells refurbished and pre owned Smartphones with warranty has now launched its first ever branded retail store in the city. Yaantra is all set to facilitate a one-on-one treatment for its customers, wherein they can visit the store in person and get to understand the repair services better.
The India’s first-of-its kind store launched by the company allows the people to purchase refurbished and pre owned handsets with warranty of all varieties and brands first-hand. The endeavour is to further enhance the trust that the brand has created in the market so far, catering to a transparent level of dealing. The store shall serve as the unified centre offering technical support and phone correction for all the mobile handsets at once.
Expressing his delight on the launch, Mr. Jayant Jha, Co-founder, Yaantra, said, “This is yet another beginning for us in a way, entering into the physical market and we shall strive best to continue to innovate, excel and work towards maximum customer satisfaction. The store is strategically located in the District Centre, Janakpuri area, which is one of the city hubs for everything technical. We have also opened two kiosks one in the EDM Mall Anand Vihar and the other in Pacific Mall, Subhash Nagar. This initiative will help us reduce the turn around time to service our customers, what works best for our clients and also gives us the competitive edge. Yaantra repairs and sells pre owned/ refurbished phones with warranty upto 6 months, promises data protection and is highly focused on customer delight."
While the Indian market is replete with technological inventions today, the refurbished mobile market still remains a highly fragmented, unorganized and to a great extent, a grey area at large. With scalable businesses like Yaantra coming to fill this gap the market faces, it looks like it will soon create great opportunities to offer. Although there are many small players operating in the market for long, customers often fail to build the kind of trust required for having safe investments in such deals for refurbished models without a dependable entity in picture. With growing numbers of reputed names now joining the game, customers can finally relax about getting cheated or facing any undue stressful situations.
Started as Gadgetwood in 2013, this start up rebranded itself to Yaantra last year. Yaantra started with an ulterior objective to offer doorstep repair services for mobiles, smartphones and tablets to the users in India. Backed by a knowledgeable and certified team of resources, serving customers online as well as directly at their doorstep, this promising start up soon made its mark with its customer-centric philosophy. Yaantra’s successful tie-up with Xiaomi and others, within just a short span of it entering the competitive market, throws light on its future in the business sector.
There have been two rounds of funding for the company, with the first being in the year 2014 when Yaantra (still Gadgetwood then) had raised an undisclosed amount of funding from a group of individual investors from India Angel Network (IAN). The investors included Ajai Chowdhry of HCL, Ashvin Chadha and Nitin Singhal of Fresco Global. These funds were primarily contributed towards the strengthening of the core team, upgrading technology and expanding the company’s services to other cities as well.
The second funding came in around the month of September in the year 2016, where the company had raised approximately $6 million funding from Carpediem Capital, an India-focused private equity fund, and its investors. The company has successfully employed this funding to create a nationwide network for servicing and selling refurbished mobile devices and to broaden its capabilities to include laptops, wearable tech and LED TVs in the near future.
