French startup grows in Brazil despite the crisis in the country

The StarOfService, startup created in France in 2012 has good reason to celebrate. Present in Brazil since June this year, they managed more than 20,000 professionals registered in this period.

The startup works with contact between service providers and people looking for them. This type of service is being very popular in Brazil, which like the rest of the world is experiencing a growing digitalization in the service sector.

The idea to create the company came from a small observation: that everything can be bought over the Internet, including services. But StarOfService goals in Brazil do not stop there. Your goal is to be the largest company to provide online services in the world! Great challenge?

Not for the founders of StarOfService already expanded its activities from France to more than 80 countries around the globe.

To Mikael Araujo, country manager of StarOfService in Brazil, the recession in Brazil was a great opportunity for technology companies such as Uber, EasyTáxi and StarOfService are having to explore very specific niche market and offer innovative solutions to the population.

The Brazil is a continental country and has a huge market potential. What are we willing to do is to transfer what is now done word-of-mouth to our online platform.

"The market in which StarOfService positions itself is much bigger than most people think. No company has taken a dominant position yet nor conquered the international market. Our ambition is to take this position, and we were lucky enough to find the right investors who share our vision of becoming the leading one-stop shop for services providers globally," says StarOfService cofounder and CEO, Lucas Lambertini.

The series A is led by Point Nine Capital (Helpling, Algolia) and also includes Oleg Tschelzoff (Fotolia), Ralph Werner (ex-eBay Senior Director, ex-CEO Mobile.de) and Kima Ventures (Xavier Niel and Jeremie Berrebi).

"StarOfService is a habit-forming product that's about to change the way people hire professionals when they need a service. The potential for service providers is infinite: StarOfService is a powerful tool for them to gain visibility online and find the right customers. At Point Nine Capital, we were quickly convinced of the market opportunity and we strongly believe that StarOfService could become the leading global player in this field," says Mathias Ockenfels from Point Nine Capital.

StarOfService had previously raised a seed round of €400,000 in 2014 from prominent angel investors, including Blablacar co-founders Frédéric Mazzella, Francis Nappez and Damien Grulier, as well as Louis Barbeau and Serge Papo, cofounders of NominatioN, along with other private investors.

About StarOfService

Launched in November 2013 by Lucas Lambertini, Toni Paignant and Maël Leclair, StarOfService has seen incredible growth and is already generating over €150 million in revenue for more than 150’000 service professionals each year. The most popular categories are room rental, hairdressing, plumbing, interior painting, singing lessons, and moving services. - https://www.starofservice.com.br/

About Point Nine Capital

Point Nine Capital is a Berlin-based venture capital firm focused on early-stage investments in the areas of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), marketplaces and mobile across Europe and North America.

The fund and its managers have backed a number of highly successful SaaS companies such as Zendesk, Delivery Hero, Humanity, Clio and Vend from their earliest stages.

Mikael Araújo is Country Manager for StarOfService Brazil and Portugal.