Bezos-Backed Pro.com Raises Another $14 Million to Help Renovate Your Home

Pro.com’s marketplace for local contractor services could face big competition

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By Brad Stone

September 26, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

This article is part of the September 29, 2014 issue of businessweek.

Fernleaf green, the color of the walls in my living room, started to look dated ages ago. The baseboards need retouching, and there’s a hole in the drywall near the front door, where movers once bobbled a sofa. Yet lethargy, that enemy of home repair, has foiled any action on these projects for years.

That was until last week, when I entered my renovation needs into the website of the Seattle startup Pro.com. The site asked me to supply my ZIP code and the dimensions of my living room and to rate my projects’ complexity on a sliding scale. It told me I should expect to pay $960 to $1,100 for the work and gave me the names and phone numbers of three contractors in my area. I called the first, who said Pro.com had already been in touch to relay information about my projects. Then we set a date for him to start.