Accel Marks Urban Company’s Public Debut with a Look at India’s Changing Work Landscape through ‘Work, In Progress,’ a Short Film

• As the first institutional investor, Accel marks the milestone with a short film ‘Work, In Progress’ chronicling the rise of India’s gray-collar economy

India, September 17, 2025: Ninety-four percent of India’s workforce has long remained invisible to traditional economic metrics – labouring in what economists call the “unorganized sector.” Yet today, as Urban Company’s IPO achieves historic oversubscription, this shadowed workforce steps into the spotlight, revealing stories of quiet resilience that challenge our conventional notions of economic progress.

The numbers tell only part of the story. Beneath the soaring valuations lies a deeper transformation: the gradual migration of India’s informal workforce into organized, dignified employment structures that offer both security and opportunity.

The reflections in ‘Work, In Progress’ are deeply stirring—fathers who once toiled in cotton mills, mothers who spent their lives in silk factories, children who grew up in cramped urban chawls. Their voices speak of a reality where organized sectors have flourished even as millions remained in informality. Yet woven through their stories is something profoundly hopeful: transformation.

From migrants rebuilding their lives as beauty professionals to workers forging new paths through skill development, the narratives in the film reflect India’s economic evolution. This shift is not merely individual—it is systemic. It represents a fundamental reimagining of how we view work, skill-building, and economic participation.

Urban Company has helped reframe how society sees this work – celebrating professionalism, building trust, and creating opportunities for millions to cross from informal survival to formal prosperity, offering predictable incomes, training, and access to financial systems once reserved for the organized sector. In eleven years, it has transformed how India experiences services at home while opening new possibilities for those who deliver them. 

The invisible economy is becoming visible, one service at a time.

For Accel, Urban Company’s first institutional investor, this IPO represents far more than a financial milestone—it affirms a decade-long belief in India’s service-sector transformation. The market’s overwhelming embrace of this IPO reflects a growing recognition: India’s economic rise is being powered as much by its frontline workers as by its boardroom visionaries.

Link to the film:  ‘Work, In Progress’  – https://youtu.be/V9k7Hbyldl4      

The film was created entirely by Accel’s in-house film studio, bringing an authentic voice to the stories of transformation within India’s evolving service economy.