My Story, TaskRabbit raises $17.8 million in Series B funding

TaskRabbit founder and product officer Leah Busque, right, talks with LeWeb conference leader Loic Le Meur at the 2011 conference in Paris.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

TaskRabbit, the San Francisco-based startup that lets people outsource errands, announced today it has raised $17.8 million in Series B financing.

The new round was led by LightSpeed Venture Partners and included contributions from TaskRabbit's existing partners, as well as new investors Allen & Company and The Tornante Company, an investment firm led by former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

The new round of financing comes seven months after TaskRabbit raised $5 million in Series A financing, bringing its total financing to date at $22.8 million. Since that round in May, the company says it has seen its net revenue triple, while its customer base has increased seven fold.

The three-year-old company, which bills itself as a network "created to harness the power
of neighbors helping neighbors," intends to use the money to expand services in the United States and overseas.

"When we launched TaskRabbit in 2008, we pioneered the concept of 'service networking.' Even then, I recognized that we were paving the way for a powerful emerging market that would change the way we collaborate with those around us to get things done," TaskRabbit founder Leah Busque said in a statement. "With the support of our new and existing investors, we will bring TaskRabbit to new markets and realize our vision of providing a novel solution that empowers everyone to live a smarter, more fulfilling life by once again relying on their neighbors."