Ikea Acquires TaskRabbit App, Helping Customers Connect with Furniture Assemblers

Tens of thousands of Americans have tasks that they don't want to do themselves. Either the jobs are physically impossible, or require skills that they don't have, or are simply not worth their time. In an effort to address that common problem, in 2008 Leah Busque founded a company called RunMyErrand, which later evolved into the app known as TaskRabbit. People around the country can use the app to hire "Taskers" to run errands or do odd jobs, and TaskRabbit keeps a percentage for connecting users to workers. According to Tracey Lien and Samantha Masunaga's L.A. Times article, Ikea recently acquired TaskRabbit in order to pair up furniture-building Taskers with Ikea's customers.

TaskRabbit was one of the very first on-demand apps, where users could pay a fee or an hourly rate to get a job done. Since then, many other companies have come in to fill the market, from Uber to Postmates and everything in between. The acquisition of TaskRabbit was a logical one for Ikea because their customers generally already outsourced the job of putting together their furniture anyway. Many customers can't figure out how to assemble Ikea furniture, so it is often simpler for them to hire someone to do it instead. By acquiring TaskRabbit, Ikea is able to get the business on both ends.

From another perspective, Ikea acquired TaskRabbit as an investment, given that the app has been pretty successful over the years since its conception. The company provides a smartphone app that allows Taskers to connect with users looking to hire help. In exchange for providing the service and convenience of their app, TaskRabbit receives 30% of the hourly payment being given to the Tasker completing the job, which is a pretty large chunk of money when movers and furniture assemblers can be making anywhere between $30 and $80 per hour. Neither company has released a public statement about how much the company sold for, but it can probably be assumed that Ikea made a sound investment.

Other on-demand service companies like Uber and Lyft or Sprig and Homejoy have either had to rely on millions of dollars in venture capital and debt financing or have failed to raise enough money and have had to go bankrupt before ever obtaining success. TaskRabbit is different in that it's been profitable for quite a while. The company's acquisition by Ikea is probably a good thing for its future growth. Now that they are connected to the largest furniture company in the US, they have the resources to expand more rapidly and reach a larger, international base of customers.

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