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ON-DEMAND CLEANING STARTUP Hassle has been taken over by deep-pocketed German rival Helpling in a deal reportedly worth €32 million.
The three-year-old UK company, co-founded by Irish woman Jules Coleman, has described itself as a kind of “Hailo for cleaners” and offers services across its home market, as well as in Dublin and Paris.
Helpling, which has raised over €56 million in funding, said the deal would create the “clear leader for online booking for household services outside the US”.
While the value of the takeover wasn’t officially revealed, TechEU reported it was worth €32 million in stock and cash.
Both companies operate in similar ways, connecting customers with pre-approved cleaners through their sites, however Helpling has been much more aggressive in its expansion moves.
It has previously bought out Singapore-based Spickify and operates in at least seven European countries, as well as in Brazil, Canada, Australia and the Middle East.
Helpling co-founder Benedikt Franke said Hassle was not only the market leader in the UK and Ireland but it had “very sophisticated technology and has built a brand that people associate with trust, quality and safety”.
Same brand, new business
Hassle will continue operating under its own brand while its founders will take on bigger jobs within the combined companies after the takeover.
It first launched as a booking service for over 25 different professions from personal trainers to driving instructors, but later scaled back its operations to focus exclusively on cleaning.
Self-employed workers can be booked through the site on a one-off or ongoing basis for a flat rate of €12 per hour in Ireland.
It has previously raised $6 million (€5.4 million) in funding from Accel Partners, a venture capital firm which has previously invested in companies like Facebook, Groupon and Dropbox.
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You could say…they cleaned up.
(Badumm-tishhh)
I don’t get it
That is the best idea ever
You had 32 million reasons to think it up.
Why didn’t I think of that.
Immense amount of hard work from Jules and the rest of the founding team to make this happen. This company nearly folded not so long ago and they had to re-name, re-brand and re-focus to become a success. Anyone can have a great idea but the dedication and brains to make it work don’t often mix. Fair play and here’s to continued success!
Fair play to her
could have used something like this back in my “free gaf” days.
oh well, twas’ my parent’s loss really.
great advert…. I use handy for my cleaners. It’s very hit and miss whether you get a good one though
Clean up after yourself so.
If you hire a cleaner for 4 hours, they charge you 48 €. However they keep 8€ (for the credit card processing, and usage of the site), the cleaner only gets 40€ and as they are contractors they have to take care of the taxing etc.
Good business model for them, not so good for their cleaners.
So they should do it for free?
The contractors don’t have to use the website if they don’t want to.
Not free, but they charge 16.66% fee for essentially a billing and scheduling solution. Not even Hailo has that big of a fee (12.5%).
If you feel comfortable to have someone cleaning your house for less than a living wage, that is fine by me, but I intent to pay people a fair wage for their work. You might think different and contribute to the ever spiraling way down of wages.
Why not charge an amount that allows the cleaners a living wage for what is essentially hard work?
That can be done by either charging a reasonable fee or charging a higher amount per hour.
But it’s the business model they have and obviously the founders put a lot of work into it to make it a brand that helping thinks can benefit them and value as this price.
i do see your point Yggr , but the ever spirralling increases during the boom became unsustainable and some services became a complete joke , there were young lads sniffing coke on the nitelinks from the back of mobile phones braggin about how much cash they were pulling in as laborers on buiding sites in dublin – there are more sides to the story than trying to imply guilt for me not paying a ‘living wage to cleaners’ – have you thought that if the service was too expensive the numbers using it would drop so much it would just not succedd and there would be no business and fewer jobs – technology is opening up possibilities for new models for almost every sector , fair play to these people who managed to create a success in the cleaning sector – unsurprisingly there is the ususal irish begruggery doin the rounds no matter what you do. Addressing issues like the minimum wage and other social issues are a mtter for government policy to address not people who want to try create a successful business.
10.6 million each. Take the leftover 200,000 and put it all on red!
Do we have anything like this in Ireland though?
I mean all Ireland and not just Dublin like Hassle.
It rolls out gradually, there have been huge roadblocks and hills to overcome to just get it to Dublin. Hailo is actually a much lighter model that doesn’t vet or examine their drivers I’m sure.
My colleagues and I launched upChore a few months ago. We are in Dublin, launching in Waterford next week and expect to be in Belfast by January.
have your say