American online task marketplace
TaskRabbit founder
Leah Busque at TechCrunch Disrupt (2012)
TaskRabbit, Inc.
d/b/a TaskRabbit operates an
online marketplace that matches freelance labor with local demand, allowing people to find help with tasks including personal assistance, furniture assembly, moving, delivery, and
handyman work.
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5] The company was founded in 2008 by
Leah Busque and was acquired by an affiliate of
IKEA in 2017.
More than 200,000 independent workers use the TaskRabbit platform.
[6]
The company was founded as RunMyErrand in
Boston in 2008, during the
Great Recession , by
Leah Busque , a former software engineer for
IBM .
[3]
[7] She got the idea to start the company when she needed dog food but didn’t have time to get it herself.
[8]
[9]
In 2009, the company received funding from
Facebook 's startup incubator, fbFund, and
Tim Ferriss became an advisor.
[10]
[8]
The firm raised $1.8 million in
seed money from
angel investors .
[11]
In April 2010, the name of the company was changed from RunMyErrand to TaskRabbit.
[12]
In June 2010, the company moved its headquarters to
San Francisco .
[13]
In May 2011, TaskRabbit raised a $5 million
Series A financing round from
Shasta Ventures ,
First Round Capital ,
Baseline Ventures ,
Floodgate Fund , Collaborative Fund,
500 Startups , and
Lisa Gansky .
[14]
[11]
[2]
In July 2011, TaskRabbit launched a mobile app for
iOS .
[15]
[16]
[17]
[18] At that time, the company had 1,500 active taskers.
[13]
In October 2011, Eric Grosse, the co-founder and former president of
Hotwire.com , was named
CEO .
[19]
[20] At that time, the company had operations in
Boston , the
San Francisco Bay Area ,
New York City ;
Chicago ;
Los Angeles ; and
Orange County, California .
[21]
[22]
In December 2011, Taskrabbit received an additional $17.8 million in a Series B round of funding from existing investors as well as
Lightspeed Venture Partners ,
Allen & Company , and
The Tornante Company . It also engaged
Michael Eisner as an advisor.
[11]
[23]
[24] At the time, the firm had 35 employees and generated $4 million in business each month.
[2]
[25]
In June 2012, Busque reassumed the role of CEO, with Gross staying on with the company's board of directors, advising on strategy and operations.
[26]
In July 2012, the company raised $13 million in funding, bringing its total funding to $37.5 million.
[27]
In January 2013, the company hired Stacy Brown-Philpot, formerly of
Google , as the company's first COO.
[28]
[29]
In March 2013, "Taskrabbit Business" was launched. It allowed businesses to hire temporary workers from the Taskrabbit users, with a 26% commission.
[30]
In November 2013, the company launched in
London , its first international market.
[31] Because of declines both in bids and in completed and accepted tasks in the U.S., the company chose to test a new system in London whereby Taskers set their own rates and schedules, and when a new job was posted that matched their profile, the platform would send them an alert. The first to respond got the job.
[9]
[5]
[32] In London, the results were positive: almost all the company's metrics improved, and the average amount of money that individual Taskers on the platform were taking home increased.
[5]
In June and July 2014, TaskRabbit began implementing this new format in all markets.
[33] The new format was met with significant backlash from the Tasker community.
[34]
[35] Taskrabbit incorporated some of the feedback into an updated version of its app that launched in January 2015.
[34] In 2014, Taskrabbit received 4,000 applications to be a tasker; it received 15,000 applications in 2015.
[5]
In April 2016, Stacy Brown-Philpot was promoted from chief operating officer to CEO and founder and former CEO Leah Busque became executive chairwoman.
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
By January 2017, the company had 55,000 active taskers.
[40]
In September 2017, the company was acquired by an affiliate of
IKEA .
[41]
[42]
[43]
[44]
[45]
In February 2018, TaskRabbit began operations in
Birmingham ,
Bristol , and
Manchester .
[46]
In March 2018, IKEA launched a furniture assembly service from Taskrabbit in the U.S.
[47]
[48]
[49]
[50]
In April 2018, the company was affected by a
data breach . At that time it had 1.5 million users and 60,000 taskers.
[51]
[52]
[53]
[54]
In September 2018, Taskrabbit expanded to
Toronto ,
Vancouver ,
Montreal , and other Canadian cities.
[55]
[56]
In December 2018, the company launched operations in
Brighton ,
Cardiff ,
Coventry ,
Liverpool ,
Warrington ,
Oxford , and
Reading .
[57]
[58]
In September 2019, TaskRabbit launched service in
Paris and followed it with a rollout to other French cities.
[59]
[60]
In October 2019, the company launched in Germany, with operations in
Berlin ,
Bochum ,
Cologne ,
Dortmund ,
Duisburg ,
Düsseldorf ,
Essen ,
Gelsenkirchen ,
Krefeld ,
Monchengladbach ,
Oberhausen ,
Wuppertal and the
Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region .
[61]
In January 2020, Taskrabbit launched service in 39 cities in Spain.
[62]
In August 2020, Brown-Philpot resigned as CEO.
[63] Taskrabbit named Ania Smith, formerly of
Walmart ,
Expedia ,
Airbnb , and
UberEats , its new CEO.
[64]
[65]
[66]
[67]
In November 2020, the company launched service in
Portugal , with operations in
Lisbon ,
Porto ,
Braga ,
Coimbra , and
Faro .
[68]
In March 2021, Taskrabbit launched in
Italy in
Rome and
Milan .
[69]
In May 2022, TaskRabbit launched a global brand refresh, introducing an all lower-case wordmark with two different "a" characters. The company also removed the image of the "rabbit" from its logo and updated its default brand colors.
[70]
[71]
[72]
In May 2022, TaskRabbit announced that it would close its physical offices, including its
San Francisco, California headquarters, and transition to becoming a
distributed company , with all employees engaging in
remote work .
[73]
[74]
In July 2022, Taskrabbit launched service in
Monaco .
[75]
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^
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^
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^
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^
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^
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