Bark.com
| Private | |
| Founded | 2012 |
| Headquarters | London, UK |
|
Area served
|
United Kingdom |
| Owner | Andrew Michael, Kai Feller |
|
Number of employees
|
15 |
| Website | www |
Bark is a web-based services marketplace founded in 2012 by British entrepreneurs Andrew Michael and Kai Feller, and headquartered in London. Bark has over 20m users worldwide.
Bark matches service buyers to suitable service providers. Buyers describe the service that they are looking for, and Bark matches them to businesses in their local area who they believe can assist the buyer.
However according to Trustpilot and online reviews which the company uses, including a recent statement issue by Lettings Agent Nationwide (2017), it's been reported that Bark.com charges high fees and to many people bid for potential contracts that don't exist and some statements have said that when they have contacted the person who needs work done, they have reported that they are only querying or didn't appreciate the call and in the UK the potential contractor can loose up to £8.80 plus VAT for "ghost leads" as Dylan Carter from Lettings Agent Nationwide testified.
The bid for work model can also mean some contractors could pay up to £50+ for leads before they even find a single job.
Bark was founded in 2012 and launched in April 2014. It is privately funded by serial entrepreneur Andrew Michael, who sold his previous businesses Fasthosts and Livedrive for close to $230m.
In January 2015, it was announced that Bark had purchased struggling Dublin-based skills marketplace SkillPages from liquidators KPMG for an undisclosed sum after the Irish business accrued €24m in debt. As part of this deal, Bark transferred all of SkillPages' 20m users onto their platform.
In April 2015, celebrity businessman and former Apprentice star Nick Hewer became Bark's brand ambassador, producing a series of videos for the company.
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Wikipedia