Blue-collar workforce management platform BetterPlace makes third acquisition with OkayGo

Bengaluru-headquartered blue-collar workforce management platform Betterplace has acquired OkayGo, a Gurugram-based blue and grey-collar staffing solution provider. The cash and equity deal will see the leadership team of OkayGo join BetterPlace. 

Founded in 2019 by Tomonaga Tejima and Saurav Chawla, OkayGo works with over 10,000 workers in the blue and grey-collar space, helping them tap into multiple earning opportunities with various enterprises. It works with the likes of Flipkart, Swiggy, Zomato, Jiomart, Zepto, and Apollo. The company was last valued at $5 million in its seed round in 2020.

The acquisition of OkayGo will help BetterPlace cross-utilise the available workforce using the former’s proprietary matching algorithm.

This marks BetterPlace's third acquisition since October 2021, including gig workers staffing solutions provider, OLX People, and mobile-based micro-training platform for workers, OUST Labs.

Saurabh Tandon, Co-founder of BetterPlace, said the company is evaluating two other acquisitions in adjacent verticals with a potential expansion to Southeast Asia. 

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“There are three parts to our business – one is the HRMS (Human Resource Managemnet Software) for frontend workers, second is workforce fulfilment, and third part includes early-wage access for workers, fintech products, ebike insurance, and other services. We have been building out the second part of the business for two years, which got a leg-up with the acquisition of OLX People around seven months back,” Saurabh Tandon told YourStory. 

“On our worker facing app, we use geolocation, availability of work within a five-kilometre radius, skill, and available hours of the worker to optimise opportunities for them during the day. The same worker can work for a food delivery company during peak hours and supplement it with an ecommerce opportunity during the day,” Saurav Chawla, Co-founder of OkayGo, told YourStory.

He added that once the enterprise assures them the worker has clocked the said amount of work, the OkayGo platform offers an early salary option to the worker instead of a wait time of 15-30 days for payment. 

Backed by Jungle Ventures and CX Partners, BetterPlace already works with 25,000 to 30,000 gig workers on its platform, offering services to nearly 200 companies across pharma, BFSI, logistics, transport, retail, and other verticals. 

It partially competes with job matching and networking platform for blue and grey-collar workers Apna, valued at $1 billion in its last funding round in September 2021 led by Tiger Global.