Seven West Media has led a $22 million funding round for Australian local services marketplace Airtasker.

The Series B round included "significant follow on investment" from existing shareholders, Shanghai-based Morning Crest Capital, Sydney-based VC fund Exto Partners and the NRMA, deepening the investment of NRMA, Morning Crest Capital and Exto Partners. Last year, the trio served as cornerstone investors in a $6.5 million raise.

As part of the deal, Seven West has secured a 15 per cent stake in Airtasker and will provide media support and investment to drive the platform's growth, with SWM sales director Jenny Hosie one of two new additions to Airtasker's board of directors.

The four year-old startup says will use the additional funding to further develop its core marketplace product and grow Airtasker as a household name for local consumer services. The funding will also be used to build on the technology team that will underpin its growing platform.


"We're helping Australian people and businesses get more done with their day," Airtasker chief Tim Fung says. "While we've seen rapid organic growth over the past year, we're only scratching the surface of a multi-billion opportunity - we still have a huge way to grow in Australia alone."


Since Airtasker raised $6.5 million in May 2015, it claims to have more than doubled its total number of users from 250,000 to over 600,000 community members, and grown transaction volume to more than $40 million a year.


Seven West Media chief executive and managing director Tim Worner says the group is continuing to pursue opportunities to build our company through key strategic investments in new disruptive ventures which can scale rapidly : "Airtasker is an exciting investment for SWM and we will drive brand awareness and engagement for Airtasker via our massive audiences in a way that only Seven West can."

Seven West chief digital officer Clive Dickens described Airtasker as "a unique and innovative" Australian digital brand in the fast growing mobile 'peer to peer' economy: "It has a highly scalable online platform that simplifies the end-to-end task process and provides a rich and valuable data platform, which is a strong competitive advantage."