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The clea­ning service Book a Tiger is getting smal­ler and smal­ler, while its compe­ti­tor Helpling is getting bigger and bigger: Helpling is taking over the Swiss offshoot of its compe­ti­tor. After the sale, Book a Tiger only opera­tes in Germany and focu­ses on B2B.

Tame­dia and Helpling launch the “Helpling market­place” in Switz­er­land — as a joint venture with a joint share in the plat­form of 50 percent each. Helpling is taking over the Swiss busi­ness of Book A Tiger, which is now only active in Germany. Helpling provi­des insu­red clea­ners who can be selec­ted and also rated via app or website. Clients and clea­ners commu­ni­cate via Helpling, and payment is also made via the platform.

Online clea­ning portals like Rocket Internet’s Helpling, Book a Tiger or Clean Agents aggres­si­vely rolled up the market a few years ago, rely­ing on broad adver­ti­sing campaigns and outdo­ing each other with discount prices. As sensi­ble as the online place­ment of clea­ning staff once seemed — the corre­spon­ding start-ups had a hard time, strugg­ling with accu­sa­ti­ons such as star­va­tion wages and quality problems. Conso­li­da­ti­ons set in. The U.S. role model Home­joy alre­ady went bank­rupt in 2015. Book A Tiger was one of the worst off. — Book A Tiger once offe­red “private resi­den­tial clea­ning and custo­mi­zed clea­ning services for busi­ness clients by profes­sio­nal clea­ners.” The company recently announ­ced plans to scale back its consu­mer business.

Helpling, foun­ded in 2014, most recently opera­ted in Austra­lia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Nether­lands, Singa­pore, and the United Arab Emira­tes (UAE). The young company has alre­ady been profi­ta­ble in most markets. Germany, with a very strong focus on Berlin, conti­nues to be the most important market for the company, which was foun­ded by Bene­dikt Franke and Philip Huff­mann. Accor­din­gly, co-foun­der Franke still sees “a great deal of growth poten­tial” for his clea­ning services in this coun­try as well.

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