Thumbtack

Thumbtack is an online marketplace for home services. Homeowners use its website and app to describe a project, compare prices and reviews, and hire local professionals for repairs, maintenance and improvements, while service businesses pay to reach those customers. The company was founded in San Francisco in 2008 by Marco Zappacosta, Jeremy Tunnell, Jonathan Swanson and Sander Daniels, as a verified, review-driven alternative to classified sites such as Craigslist. It now operates as a remote-first company and says it serves more than 500 project categories with over 300,000 professionals and more than 1,000 employees.

Thumbtack raised $1.2 million in June 2010, mostly from angel investors. A $4.5 million Series A followed in January 2012, matching the $4.5 million equity sale recorded in the company's SEC Form D that year. The company raised a $12.5 million Series B in June 2013 and a $30 million Series C in May 2014 from Sequoia Capital and Tiger Global Management. Google Capital, now CapitalG, led a $100 million Series D in August 2014, and Baillie Gifford led a $125 million Series E in September 2015. Sequoia led a $150 million Series F in July 2019 at a valuation near $1.7 billion, and the Qatar Investment Authority led a $275 million round in July 2021 at a $3.2 billion valuation. In July 2024 Thumbtack added $75 million of debt financing from Silicon Valley Bank. The company names Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, Javelin Venture Partners, Baillie Gifford and CapitalG as its backers.

Thumbtack remains private and has not announced an IPO or sale. Fast Company reported fiscal 2024 revenue of about $400 million. The company acquired Toronto-based Setter in December 2020, and since 2023 it has built distribution partnerships with Nextdoor, H-E-B, Zillow, ServiceTitan, OfferUp, Redfin and Amazon Alexa, along with an early integration into OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Thumbtack shows the long holding periods common in marketplace investing. Early backers entered between 2010 and 2014, and growth investors priced the company at roughly $1.7 billion in 2019 and $3.2 billion in 2021, about 13 years after founding, but none of them had a public exit as of 2026. Sequoia's participation from the Series C through the Series F shows a firm adding to a position over several rounds rather than at a single stage. Across the equity rounds reported here the company raised about $698 million, which puts the latest disclosed valuation at less than five times capital raised.