IKEA Group on Thursday announced a deal to acquire on-demand help start-up TaskRabbit as the world’s largest furniture retailer grabbed a seat in the online sharing economy.
TaskRabbit provides an online platform where people can hire freelance labor for anything from fixing leaky plumbing or assembling furniture to picking up groceries or waiting in lines outside Apple Inc stores to buy iPhones on launch days.
Since being founded nine years ago, San Francisco-based TaskRabbit has spread to 40 US cities and London, the company said.
Photo: Bloomberg
“Through our unique on-demand platform, TaskRabbit is making life better for both consumers and ‘taskers,’” TaskRabbit chief executive officer Stacy Brown-Philpot said.
TaskRabbit expected the merger with IKEA to result in a broader array of services being offered and the potential for taskers to make more money.
Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
TaskRabbit is to continue to operate as an independent company, said IKEA, which has its headquarters in the Netherlands.
Late last year, IKEA successfully tested making TaskRabbit talent available to help IKEA customers assemble newly bought furniture.
“In a fast-changing retail environment, we continuously strive to develop new and improved products and services to make our customers’ lives a little bit easier,” IKEA chief executive Jesper Brodin said in a joint release. “Entering the on-demand, sharing economy enables us to support that.”
IKEA planned to make TaskRabbit services available to customers after the acquisition is completed.
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