Property repair claims platform Handdii has secured $1.5 million in seed funding, supporting further market expansion after rollouts in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney.

Founded by industry veterans Kathryn Wood and Christie Downs, Handdii digitally enables an insurance company to pair customers with contractors who can assist them within minutes with property repairs.

“The idea for Handdii was created on the back of a napkin on a long haul plane flight: technology to simplify the claims journey and enable contractors to delight customers in their time of need,” says Ms Wood, who formerly led the Motor and Property Claims division at QBE.

Co-founder Ms Downs was sales director at Johns Lyng Group for 11 years and was also GM Business Development at Carlton Football Club.

The platform promises to significantly reduce the length of a claim and remove much of the hassle of insurance work for contractors.

“Insurance companies face the challenge of managing cost containment while striving to meet the increasing expectation of customers for an on-demand experience,” Handdii says.

Funding was led by Scale Investors, which focuses on women-led tech companies. Scale was joined by a unit of NASDAQ-listed Greenlight Capital, former chairman of Melbourne IVF, John McBain, and Charles Robinson who, along with The Weinman family’s Deasil Group, had already joined Ms Wood and Ms Downs in a pre-seed funding round in December 2017.