Startup WorkIndia raises Rs24 cr, to invest in hiring more people

WorkIndia, a technology marketplace in the blue and grey collar recruitment segment, has raised Rs 24 crore from BEENEXT, Singapore and Mamoru Taniya, Chairman of Asuka Asset Management, Japan. The startup will use the fund to expand business in new areas and hire more people. This was the sixth funding round for the Bengaluru-based startup. “We have been investing in WorkIndia for the past 3 years and will continue to do so, given the high-growth and the cutting-edge technology products developed by WorkIndia.” said Dirk Van Quaquebeke, co-founder of BEENEXT and a deep-technology enthusiast.

Being a 100 percent product company, funding hasn’t been a concern for WorkIndia. The startup directs all its funds towards product development as opposed to spending them on building feet on the street or on any physical office infrastructure, Dirk said.

Kunal Patil, co-founder of WorkIndia, said: “The blue and grey collar segment is already online for satisfying their various consumption needs, for example, Youtube and other video apps for entertainment, WhatsApp for communication and DailyHunt for their current events. It is thus natural that, for recruitment too, they are rapidly moving online.”

Kunal said that WorkIndia is a pure technology company (Like Google, Facebook) and not a tech-enabled company (like Food delivery, E-commerce) and hence the options to experiment with myriad technologies is tremendous.

WorkIndia gets 300,000 unique employers per quarter, as against 500,000 unique employers on Naukri.com. The company grew 9.7x between March 2018 and March 2019 on all major metrics -- revenue, transactions, employer numbers and candidate numbers.

Misa Edo, an investor in WorkIndia, the youngest woman to take a company public in Japan and Young Global Leader in World Economic Forum, said: “With 50 million daily hits (1.25 billion monthly), a massive scale reach and dynamic algorithms already in place, WorkIndia is one of the few Indian startups that is truly ready for Artificial Intelligence capability.”

The challenge of expanding business while still growing brings with it opportunities for young talent, and WorkIndia has devised a simple three-pronged company culture and philosophy to attract and nurture them. It goes as: Learn, Earn and Have Fun, said Jatin Jakharia, co-founder of WorkIndia.

“On earning, WorkIndia pays one of the highest salaries. Unlike startups, it is not stingy on salaries and there is a liberal ESOP pool for high performers. In terms of learning, given that WorkIndia is a pure technology company, there is a significant amount of learning. It being in the impact sector, where real livelihoods of poor people get impacted, the work done by young talent is reflected directly. It helps the society on a massive scale,” said Jakharia.

Here the culture is extremely open-minded. A lot of focus is on creating ownership and a non-judgemental culture, which eventually creates a lot of fun in the team, Jatin added. Mamoru Taniya, Chairman of Asuka Asset Management and an investor in WorkIndia, said: “Learn, Earn and Have Fun is not just something that exists on paper in WorkIndia but is actually practiced deeply within the firm. I have been an investor in WorkIndia for the past 2.5 years and have seen this culture very closely."