{"id":36155,"date":"2023-10-20T14:42:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/tradie-booking-platform-raises-an-additional-6-million-plans-to-nail-the-on-demand-space-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:42:25","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:42:25","slug":"tradie-booking-platform-raises-an-additional-6-million-plans-to-nail-the-on-demand-space-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/tradie-booking-platform-raises-an-additional-6-million-plans-to-nail-the-on-demand-space-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Tradie booking platform raises an additional $6 million, plans to nail the on-demand space &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"443\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/l_tradie-600.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_tradie-600\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Tradie booking platform hipages has snapped up an additional $6 million in funding to fuel further growth and improve its online platform.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The latest capital injection was led by existing investor Ellerston Capital \u2013 the fund set up by the Packer family \u2013 as well as Right Click Capital, Australian Ethical Investments and new investor Kestrel Capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The round follows <a href=\"financing-a-business\/venture-capital\/tradie-platform-hipages-tools-up-with-6-million-investment-from-big-names\/2014050712235.html\">a $6 million raise last year<\/a>, meaning the startup has scooped up $12 million in equity financing in just over 12 months.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hipages specialises in connecting users with trade professionals and has been operating for more than 11 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Co-founder and chief executive David Vitek told <i>StartupSmart<\/i> the latest round was a testament to the hunger for on-demand services in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe had a great year last year and now we\u2019re looking to keep pushing forward,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis time what we\u2019re looking at is working on diving deeper into the market. We see a big opportunity in moving towards an on demand experience for finding tradespeople and home services.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Vitek says this round will also allow the platform to amplify its growth by improving the website\u2019s mobile optimisation.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re starting to see people do the process [of booking a tradesperson] on the go and when they\u2019re out and about,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo we\u2019re looking to deliver that on-demand experience so that when you post a job on hipages the next thing that happens is you\u2019re chatting to a tradesperson on the app instantly. We fund most of our growth\u2026 this was about allowing us to push further to grow the development team significantly larger than we otherwise could as well as to work through the branding and marketing to get the messaging out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As for whether an international expansion is on the cards, Vitek says the focus for the moment is on getting the product right in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt this stage our focus is on the Australian market\u2026 we think it is a massive market and we want to get that right here first.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Hipages says it has processed more than $1.35 billion worth of jobs in the past 12 months. Last year the business\u2019s revenue was growing at 30% per annum.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><i>Do you know more on this story or have a tip of your own? Raising capital or launching a startup? <\/i><a href=\"mailto:news@startupsmart.com.au\"><i>Let us know<\/i><\/a><i>. Follow&nbsp;StartupSmart&nbsp;on <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/StartUpSmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Facebook<\/i><\/a><i>, <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/startupsmartnow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>Twitter<\/i><\/a><i>, and <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/startupsmart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><i>LinkedIn<\/i><\/a><i>. <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tradie booking platform hipages has snapped up an additional $6 million in funding to fuel further growth and improve its<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}