Irishwoman Jules Coleman's start-up Hassle.com is to go global after being acquired by Berlin's Helpling for an undisclosed sum. Pictured: Hassle.com founding team Tom Nimmo, Alex Depledge and Jules Coleman
Hassle.com, a kind of Hailo for cleaners founded by Irishwoman Jules Coleman, has been acquired by Berlin-based Helpling for around €32m. Coleman said the acquisition will expand Hassle.com beyond Europe to provide household services in the US and elsewhere.
Former Accenture executive Coleman established the company in London in 2011 with friends Alex Depledge and Tom Nimmo after teaching herself Ruby on Rails and attending the TechStars programme in London.
The company raised US$6m a year ago from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel Partners, which has also invested in Facebook, Etsy, Spotify, Dropbox and Atlassian.
Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com, Coleman said that the primary objective of the acquisition was to achieve scale.
Hassle.com will retain its brand name and Coleman will become chief product officer for the combined entity.
Going global? No Hassle!
Led by Benedikt Franke and Philip Huffman, home-cleaning services provider Helpling launched one year ago and is already leading across 12 markets. Helpling has raised €56.5m from Lakestar, Mangrove, Rocket Internet and other high-profile investors to expand its leading global position and continue its path of sustainable growth.
“It is a joining of forces – we are the two largest players in the cleaning and home services market and we decided it made better sense to join forces rather than fight a war of attrition,” Coleman said.
She explained that Hassle.com will trade under its brand name in English-speaking markets while Helpling will continue to focus on markets it is active in.
The combined company will operate in 14 markets, holding strategic cities such as London, Berlin and Paris.
“Hassle.com is not only the market leader in the UK and Ireland, it also has a very sophisticated technology and has built a brand that people associate with trust, quality and safety,” Franke said.
“The team has done a great job to pioneer this model and to establish Hassle.com as one of the leading home-cleaning marketplaces in Europe.”
Coleman said that one of the attractive aspects of the deal was Helpling’s existing global reach.
“They have rolled out successfully in North America, Canada and Brazil for example, so it means we can go from being a European player to a global player.”
