TaskRabbit
TypeSubsidiary
Founded2008 (2008) (as RunMyErrand)
FounderLeah Busque
HeadquartersNone, distributed company
Area served
United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and Monaco
ServicesOnline marketplace
ParentIKEA
Websitewww.taskrabbit.com
TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque (age 32) 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]

History

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 after 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]

References

  1. ↑ Lopez, Lolita (February 3, 2012). "Creative Ways to Make Money in Sour Economy". NBC News.
  2. 1 2 3 Moran, Gwen (November 21, 2011). "Building a Business on Busy Schedules and Making Errands Pay". Entrepreneur.
  3. 1 2 Tsotsis, Alexia (July 15, 2011). "Taskrabbit Turns Grunt Work Into a Game". Wired.
  4. ↑ Thier, Jane (January 24, 2022). "Taskrabbit's CEO on how the gig economy helps everyone". Fortune.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Bhattacharya, Sanjiv (December 5, 2015). "Taskrabbit: How an app can relieve you of all your chores". The Daily Telegraph.
  6. ↑ Abril, Danielle (May 25, 2022). "Future of Work: Taskrabbit CEO permanently ditches the office". The Washington Post.
  7. ↑ ENG, DINAH (June 25, 2019). "How TaskRabbit Got Its Start and Helped Spawn the Gig Economy". Fortune.
  8. 1 2 BERCOVICI, JEFF (June 2017). "This Founder Raised $1M for Her Startup With a $700 Plane Ticket to Meet Tim Ferriss". Inc.
  9. 1 2 Newton, Casey (May 23, 2013). "Temping fate: can Taskrabbit go from side gigs to real jobs?". The Verge.
  10. ↑ Eldon, Eric (May 28, 2009). "FbFund: 18 companies and 2 nonprofits win, head to Palo Alto". VentureBeat.
  11. 1 2 3 Tsotsis, Alexia (May 4, 2011). "TaskRabbit Gets $5M From Shasta Ventures, First Round And Others To Help People Get Stuff Done". TechCrunch.
  12. ↑ Moore, Galen (April 8, 2010). "RunMyErrand changes name to TaskRabbit". American City Business Journals.
  13. 1 2 Hoshaw, Lindsey (July 28, 2011). "Need someone to run your errands? There's an app for that". Forbes.
  14. ↑ Parr, Ben (July 28, 2011). "Taskrabbit for iPhone Lets You Outsource Your Chores". Mashable.
  15. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (July 28, 2011). "Taskrabbit Releases Its Amazing iPhone App". TechCrunch.
  16. ↑ Brustein, Joshua (August 21, 2011). "Outsourcing Chores Made Easy". The New York Times.
  17. ↑ Zimmer, Andrew (August 15, 2011). "Other people do everything for you". Thrillist.
  18. ↑ Myers, Courtney (July 28, 2011). "Taskrabbit goes mobile!". The Next Web.
  19. ↑ "TaskRabbit Names Former Expedia Head CEO; Founder Shifts to Chief Product Officer" (Press release). PR Newswire. October 12, 2011.
  20. ↑ Tsotsis, Alexia (October 12, 2011). "Taskrabbit Gets A New CEO, Eric Grosse". TechCrunch.
  21. ↑ Shontell, Alyson (October 27, 2011). "Founder Q&A: Make A Boatload Of Money Doing Your Neighbor's Chores On TaskRabbit". Business Insider.
  22. ↑ O’Dell, Jolie (November 2, 2011). "How one woman technologist single-handedly created thousands of jobs". VentureBeat.
  23. ↑ Goode, Lauren (December 13, 2011). "TaskRabbit Raises $17.8 Million, Brings in Eisner as Adviser". All Things Digital.
  24. ↑ Musil, Steven (December 13, 2011). "TaskRabbit raises $17.8 million in Series B funding". CNET.
  25. ↑ Bilton, Nick (November 10, 2011). "Taskrabbit Looks to Expand Cities and Offer an API". The New York Times.
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  27. ↑ Jeffries, Adrianne (July 23, 2012). "Taskrabbit takes on another $13 million in funding". The Verge.
  28. ↑ Swisher, Kara (January 14, 2013). "Taskrabbit Hires Google's Brown-Philpot in a Renewed Management Expansion". All Things Digital.
  29. ↑ Taylor, Colleen (January 14, 2013). "Taskrabbit Nabs Ex-Googler Stacy Brown-Philpot For COO Spot". TechCrunch.
  30. ↑ Taylor, Colleen (March 23, 2013). "Taskrabbit Debuts Tools For Hiring Ongoing Temp Work As It Hones Focus On Business Users". TechCrunch.
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  32. ↑ Newton, Casey (June 17, 2014). "Taskrabbit is blowing up its business model and becoming the Uber for everything". The Verge.
  33. ↑ Perez, Sarah (June 17, 2014). "Following A Drop In Completed Jobs, Errands Marketplace Taskrabbit Shakes Up Its Business Model". TechCrunch.
  34. 1 2 Taylor, Colleen (January 21, 2015). "Through The Fire: What TaskRabbit Learned From Its Big Backlash". TechCrunch.
  35. ↑ Weber, Harrison (July 10, 2014). "TaskRabbit users revolt as the company shuts down its bidding system". VentureBeat.
  36. ↑ Guynn, Jessica (April 14, 2016). "TaskRabbit names new CEO". USA TODAY.
  37. ↑ MOHAN, PAVITHRA (April 14, 2016). "TaskRabbit just promoted COO Stacy Brown-Philpot to CEO". Fast Company.
  38. ↑ Lynn, Samara (April 15, 2016). "STACY BROWN-PHILPOT PROMOTED TO TASKRABBIT CEO". Black Enterprise.
  39. ↑ "TaskRabbit Promotes Stacy Brown-Philpot to CEO". The Wall Street Journal. April 15, 2016.
  40. ↑ Kramar, Andrea; Stevens, Mary (January 17, 2017). "Some of the strangest jobs people have paid others to do on TaskRabbit". CNBC.
  41. ↑ Dickey, Megan Rose (September 28, 2017). "Ikea has bought Taskrabbit". TechCrunch.
  42. ↑ Hsu, Tiffany (September 28, 2017). "Ikea Enters 'Gig Economy' by Acquiring TaskRabbit". The New York Times.
  43. ↑ Taylor, Kate (September 28, 2017). "Ikea has acquired TaskRabbit — and it could fix the most annoying thing about the furniture giant". Business Insider.
  44. ↑ "IKEA Group signs agreement to acquire TaskRabbit" (Press release). PR Newswire. September 28, 2017.
  45. ↑ Butler, Sarah (September 28, 2017). "Ikea enters gig economy by buying freelance labour firm TaskRabbit". The Guardian.
  46. ↑ Tan, Emily (February 20, 2018). "Ikea's Taskrabbit to launch in Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester". Campaign.
  47. ↑ Perez, Megan (March 13, 2018). "IKEA U.S. launches a furniture assembly service from Taskrabbit". TechCrunch.
  48. ↑ Angulo, Ingrid (March 13, 2018). "Ikea rolls out nationwide assembly services with TaskRabbit". CNBC.
  49. ↑ Eldredge, Barbara (March 13, 2018). "Ikea officially launches TaskRabbit assembly service". Curbed.
  50. ↑ Estrada, Zac (March 13, 2018). "Ikea now offers TaskRabbit furniture assembly service in the US". The Verge.
  51. ↑ Kraus, Rachel (April 16, 2018). "TaskRabbit notifies users of 'cybersecurity incident,' shuts down service". Mashable.
  52. ↑ Alaimo, Dan (April 19, 2018). "Ikea-owned Taskrabbit hit by apparent data breach". Industry Dive.
  53. ↑ Cameron, Dell (April 19, 2018). "TaskRabbit is Back Online After Suspected Data Breach With Plans to Bolster Security". Gizmodo.
  54. ↑ "TaskRabbit hit with security breach, goes offline". CBS News. Associated Press. April 18, 2018.
  55. ↑ Lau, Lucy (October 19, 2018). "You no longer have to assemble your own Ikea furniture, thank God". The Georgia Straight.
  56. ↑ Ringstrom, Anna (September 18, 2018). "IKEA's services platform Taskrabbit expands to Canada". Reuters.
  57. ↑ Jones, Harrison (December 26, 2018). "Oxford residents offered everyday task help with rabbit launch". Oxford Mail.
  58. ↑ Hughes, Matthew (December 6, 2018). "Errand service TaskRabbit launches in six new UK cities". The Next Web.
  59. ↑ "À Toulouse, cette entreprise monte les meubles Ikea pour vous" [In Toulouse, this company assembles Ikea furniture for you]. La Dépêche du Midi (in French). May 4, 2021.
  60. ↑ "TaskRabbit Launches in France Amidst High Demand for Outsourcing Tasks" (Press release). PR Newswire. September 26, 2019.
  61. ↑ "TaskRabbit Announces Launch into Germany" (Press release). PR Newswire. October 22, 2019.
  62. ↑ Belen, Rodrigo (November 10, 2020). "Ikea trae a España su plataforma digital de "manitas"" [Ikea brings its digital “handyman” platform to Spain]. ABC (in Spanish).
  63. ↑ Gelles, David (June 23, 2020). "TaskRabbit C.E.O. to Step Down, a Blow for Silicon Valley Diversity". The New York Times.
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  68. ↑ "TaskRabbit chega a Portugal. Empresa do IKEA quer ajudar a criar empregos" [TaskRabbit arrives in Portugal. IKEA company wants to help create jobs]. SAPO (in European Portuguese). 19 November 2020.
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  70. ↑ "Il marketplace Taskrabbit aggiorna il marchio e sceglie un nuovo logo" [Taskrabbit marketplace updates branding and chooses a new logo]. YM! (in Italian). May 27, 2022.
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