BetterPlace acquires TROOPERS to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia market

Frontline workforce management platform Betterplacehas acquired Malaysia-based flexi talent solutions technology player TROOPERS, expanding its footprint in the Southeast Asia (SEA) market. 

The terms of the current transaction, including its size, were not disclosed. However, Pravin Agarwala, Co-founder and Group CEO of BetterPlace, told YourStory that it is one of the “large deals” for the company. It typically does cash and stock deals.

The Bengaluru-headquartered firm noted that this acquisition will strengthen its gig fulfilment and Workforce-as-a-Service (WaaS) capabilities.

“​​The nature of frontline work has changed dramatically in the last decade with gig demand clearly standing out for the future,” Agarwala said. “Coupled with the unique tech-based flexi talent solutions of TROOPERS, BetterPlace will help enterprises reliably address issues such as high attrition rates, sky-rocketing management costs, and skilled manpower availability issues.”

He added that frontline workers will be able to maximise their overall earning potential through TROOPERS’ proprietary gig matching algorithms.

The SEA region is expected to see a four-fold growth in demand for gig workers in the next five years and local enterprises may fill up 40% of their workforce requirements with flexi talent, according to BetterPlace.

Founded in 2017, TROOPERS helps enterprises in Malaysia find on-demand, pre-screened, frontline workers on a part-time basis; giving them the flexibility to scale up gig workers as per the demands of their operations. Its offerings to enterprises include rostering, talent management, payroll and training.

“We started TROOPERS to address the problems of talent shortage and productivity for the enterprises,” Joshua Tan, Co-founder and CEO of TROOPERS said. “We look forward to leveraging BetterPlace’s tech capabilities and domain expertise that would help us scale this proposition further, potentially changing the nature of frontline work in SEA and the globe.”

Plans for the future

BetterPlace recently entered the SEA region by acquiring an Indonesia-based blue-collar staffing platform, MyRobin. The company plans to invest north of $50 million in the SEA region over the next three years, according to Agarwala.

It will expand to other parts of SEA like Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea, Agarwala said, adding that it might be looking to enter the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region in the coming months as well.

Talking about the company’s plans in India, Agarwala, noted, “India will continue to be our biggest market and we will continue to invest here in our organic growth strategy.” In the coming months, it plans to invest a lot more in three areas—manufacturing, retail and BFSI, he added.

Earlier, Agarwala had told YourStory that the firm is looking at a couple of more acquisitions in certain product areas in India and outside as well, and it is doubling down on its investment in R&D for future growth.

Speaking about fundraising, Pravin said that BetterPlace is sufficiently capitalised. In December, the firm raised $40 million as part of its extended Series C round, which resulted in international investor Macquarie Capital joining the captable, along with Jungle Ventures, Unitus, BII, Capria and 3one4 Capital. It has raised a total funding of $81.7 million over eight rounds, as per Tracxn.

Founded in 2015, BetterPlace caters to the entire value chain of frontline workforce management, from verification, discovery, hiring, and onboarding to upskilling, productivity management and benefits transfer. It claims to have over 30 million workers on the platform and counts 1,100 companies as clients.

​​BetterPlace clocked a revenue of Rs 275 crore in FY22, a 5.5X increase on a year-on-year basis. For FY23, BetterPlace is looking for a 3X growth in revenue, and EBITDA-level profitability by the end of 2023 and net profitability in 2024, the company noted.