US start-up Handybook raises US$2m to expand booking site for household services

16 Oct 2012

Oisin Hanrahan, co-founder and CEO, Handybook

Handybook, a new start-up to book household services online that spun out of Harvard University’s Innovation Lab earlier this year, has raised US$2m to expand its portfolio and team.

The start-up was co-founded by Irishman Oisin Hanrahan along with Umang Dua, while they were students at Harvard Business School. The other co-founders of Handybook are Weina Scott and Ignacio Leonhardt.

The US$2m seed funding came from General Catalyst Partners, Highland Capital Partners and individual investors.

Via the Handybook platform, users can book professional home services online instantly. The site currently offers services in Boston and New York and has built up a community of about 100 professional service providers such as handymen, housekeepers and painters.

With the US$2m funding injection, Hanrahan and Dua are planning to expand Handybook’s core engineering team, introduce new features to the online platform, expand into new locations and build its network of professional service providers.

“We are drowning in technology that allows us to solve the problem of scheduling services and Handybook applies them in an intuitive interface that lets users book a vendor in about 90 seconds,” said Hanrahan.

Dua added that the company has set up an “intricate” screening system as well as a technology platform that offers instant booking and confirmation of services.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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