TaskRabbit, the task and errand service that finds people to do the jobs you hate, announced that they raised $13 million in Series C funding led by Founders Fund, an existing investor, with the participation of Shasta Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Baseline Ventures, Shervin Pishevar, and 500 Startups.  They also announced that they’ve added two new board members as they push to grow their service.  The new round of funding will be used to expand the company’s engineering and executive teams.

The new funding brings their total funds to $38 million.  Just before 2011 came to an end, TaskRabbit announced that they’ve raised 17.8 million in Series B funding led by LightSpeed Venture Partners.

TaskRabbit allows busy people to do more by offering services that would help them accomplish simple but time consuming tasks like grocery shopping, or fixing things around the house.  TaskRabbit points you in the right direction, helping you find the right people to do the job.  TaskRabbit allows you to post a task, then TaskRabbit users will bid for the job so you’d get to select who to hire, then after the job is finished, that’s the only time you’d have pay.  It lessens the risk of getting swindled or duped.

TaskRabbit is part of a growing industry where services can be better commoditized through web platforms and social media.  Here’s a list of other services that have fared well in this growing sector:

Angie’s List

The site offers services for almost anything you can think of, from home improvement tasks to health tasks, to automotive tasks and even baby sitting.  But what makes it better than most of the sites that offer the same services is that it doesn’t allow people to leave anonymous reviews, so feedback is certified–no bots or malicious people trying to screw things up for rivaling businesses.

Agent Anything

This site helps you accomplish a task while also helping college/university students finish their studies.  They only hire agents, service providers, with a valid university e-mail address who wants to earn cash to fund their studies, or those who don’t have anything much to do and just want to earn a little more on side to fund their drinking, shopping or video game collection.  The great thing about this is that it matches clients’ schedule with agents’ schedule, so the task will be accomplished on time.

ServiceMagic

They offer the same thing as Angie’s List and they also give their seal of approval to those who offer services that they have screened or approved.  They also offer services for wedding, special events, senior care and a lot more.

RedBeacon

This site helps you find services to do home jobs: for instance, if you’re looking for a housekeeper or a plumber, or someone to finish cleaning your garage or yard.  The site also helps small businesses gain traction, as they offer their certification for local venues — they just have to verify their business with RedBeacon first. And like the other services, you only pay when the job is done.