[YS Exclusive] WorkIndia raises Rs 24 Cr from BEENEXT, Asuka Asset Management

Bengaluru-based WorkIndia, a geo-positioning app which helps in connecting blue and gray collar workers with employers, has raised funding of Rs 24 crore from BEENEXT, Singapore and Mamoru Taniya, Chairman of Asuka Asset Management, Japan.

WorkIndia will use the fresh capital to expand into new business areas and international markets, the company told YourStory.

The startup claims that it gets 300,000 unique employers per quarter vs 500,000 unique employers in total on Naukri.com, and that WorkIndia has expanded nearly 10x between March 2018 and March 2019 on all major metrics: revenue, transactions, employer numbers and candidate numbers.

Speaking with YourStory, Co-founder Kunal Patil says that the blue and grey collar segment is already online and using the internet: WhatsApp for communication, DailyHunt for news, and YouTube for communication.

"It is thus natural that, for recruitment too, they are rapidly moving online," he said.

Founded in February 2015 by Kunal Patil, Nilesh Dungarwal, Moiz Arsiwala, Jatin Jakharia, Soumil Rao, and Lokesh Tiwari, WorkIndia has created a platform that utilises geo-tagging and algorithms for relevance adaptation to connect job seekers with companies.

Also read: MBA grads and techie join hands to create a geo positioning mobile app for grey-collared workforce

In the last four years, WorkIndia has expanded its presence from just Mumbai to 284 cities across India. It has also extended its marketplace offering in gray while collar job segment. Attributing growth to technology, Kunal said that WorkIndia is a pure technology company like Google or Facebook and not a tech-enabled company (like food delivery, e-commerce) and hence the options to experiment with myriad technologies is tremendous.

The latest funding round was the sixth round for the startup; the company says that as significant revenues keep flowing in, its existing investors continue to commit capital.

Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Co-founder of BEENEXT said, “We have been investing in WorkIndia for the past three years and will continue to do so, given the high growth and the cutting-edge technology products developed by them.”

Earlier rounds of funding included angel investors like Citrus Pay founder Satyen Kothari, Vikram Limaye, MD and CEO of National Stock Exchange, and Keshav Sanghi, founder of Ventureworks Investment.