Industry Cleaning services Website handy.com Founded 2012 Type of business Private | Services House cleaning Headquarters New York City Number of employees 200 | |
 | ||
Key people Oisin Hanrahan (Co-founder & CEO)
Umang Dua (Co-founder & COO)
Ignacio Leonhardt (Co-founder)
Weina Scott (Co-founder) Profiles | ||
Handy is an online two-sided market place for residential cleanings and other home services. Founded in 2012, it operates in United States, United Kingdom, and Canada.
Contents
History
Handy was founded last June 2012 as Handybook by Oisin Hanrahan, Umang Dua, Weina Scott (computer science graduate from Harvard in 2011), and Ignacio Leonhardt (graduate of Duke and the London School of Economics) following a novel approach that has been compared to Uber. Hanrahan and Dua were roommates studying at Harvard Business School at the time. Handybook name was chosen as it was a place to book handyman and cleaning services.
In October 2012 Handybook raised 2 million dollars in seed financing from General Catalyst Partners and Highland Capital Partners.
The following year in October 2013, Handybook raised further 10 million dollars from existing investors and David Tisch. The same month Handybook acquired Exec to help build its West Coast presence.
Handybook raised 30 million dollars in a B round in June 2014.
In September 2014, Handybook changed its name to Handy. A week after the rebrand, Handy acquired a London incumbent Mopp at an undisclosed valuation.
In November 2014, Handy was sued over a number of alleged labor violations, including that the company was deliberately misclassifying its employees as independent contractors.
In March 2015, Handy announced another B round raising 15 million dollars.
It was reported in May 2015 that Handy was in talks to acquire its rival Homejoy. Homejoy shutdown in July 2015 without being acquired amid worker classification suits.
In June 2015 Handy announced completing its 1 millionth booking on the platform.
Operations
Handy operates in 28 cities across United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. It employs a full-time staff of more than 160 across all these cities, and has enlisted about 10,000 cleaners to work on its platform. About 80% of its bookings come from repeat customers.