Mila, a location-based, mobile community marketplace for tasks and errands, has raised 3m Swiss Francs (£2.1m) from a consortium of private Swiss and German technology investors, including ex-SAP board member, Peter Zencke, and former Swisscom Mobile CEO, Adrian Bult.

Mila is a location-based mobile marketplace for tasks and products. It enables people to people find, discover and buy services from friendly and skilled people in their neighbourhood with a few taps of their smartphone. The aim is to enable busy people to get help to get tasks done, while also helping people or small businesses with spare time, skills or products to earn money through peer-to-peer transactions.

Mila was established earlier this year as a spin-off of Swiss-based technology company coresystems, which specializes in building mobile platforms. It currently has offices in Zurich, Switzerland, Shanghai, China, New York, London, and Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

When a user posts a request for a service or for a task to be accomplished to Mila – for example, to build a flat-packed bed, to help clear an overgrown garden, or to install a wireless network in their home – local businesses and people can offer to provide or fulfil the task. Mila provides a convenient place for the transaction to take place, with payment made via PayPal. 

Mila is currently available around the world via the web and mobile web, with the greatest concentration of users in Germany, Switzerland, Indonesia and China. iOS and Android apps are due out in March, and Mila says it will use the funds to push the service in Shanghai and Jakarta, where it has proved incredibly popular.

There’s a video explaining how Mila works here.