Blue Collar workforce management Smartstaff announced on Monday that it has raised $4.3 Mn in a seed funding round. Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners and Arkam Ventures, along with Gemba Capital participated in the round. Dozens of angel investors also took part but their names were not disclosed.
Smartstaff was founded in October 2020 by four co-founders and ex-colleagues at Runnr – Arpit Dave, Viral Chhajer, Ganesh Chilukuri and Aravind Reddy. Blume Ventures and Nexus Venture Partners were also the early backers of Runnr. Zomato had acquired the hyperlocal logistic startup Runnr in 2017 in all stock deal for $40 Mn.
SmartStaff claims that poor management of blue collar workforce is actually an acute legacy problem. This prolonged legacy problem results in attrition and absenteeism of workers, which obviously doesn’t bode well for the productivity and profitability of the manufacturing industry.
This new age company claims to resolve these challenges with an easy-to-use, mobile-based, workforce management and staffing solution. It helps the manufacturing industry upgrade from legacy processes, and dramatically reduces attrition and absenteeism while improving their workers’ visibility into payouts, statutory contributions and their timesheets.
Interestingly, the space pertaining to blue collar work force is witnessing lot of traction off late. Barely a month ago, blue collar work marketplace Apna achieved the rare title of being the youngest startup to gain the unicorn status.
Here are the top quotes of Smartstaff’s CEO & Investors
Arpit Dave, Co-founder & CEO, Smartstaff, mentioned, “With more and more industrial workers getting access to smartphones, we see a huge potential in using technology to reimagine workplace processes, and unlock massive value for companies and workers alike”.
Sameer Brij Verma, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners, added, “We at Nexus are very excited to partner again with Runnr’s founding team to re-imagine blue-collar recruitment and staffing for over 100 million workers in the country. Via their new-age work-force management platform, SmartStaff aims to drive game-changing efficiencies in the way manufacturing and supply chain companies source, retain, upskill, pay and incentivise their staff.’’
“Indian manufacturing is silently powered by tens of thousands of SMBs and their workforces. And yet, the ability to enhance that labor discovery, employment, productivity and transparency – is alarmingly low. The Smartstaff team is all set to change that. Their solution has already wowed some of the smaller and largest employers in the space. We will soon see the core of Indian manufacturing be powered by Smartstaff”, commented Karthik Reddy, Blume Ventures.
“Over the past decade, smartphone penetration across India has triggered waves of new age platforms disrupting large markets. We see Smartstaff leading the change by digitising workplace processes for manufacturers, and enabling 100M+ blue collar manufacturing workers to use their smartphones as an instrument of productivity with information on shifts, payouts, savings, jobs, and communication,” commented Bala Srinivasa, Managing Director at Arkam Ventures.
Viral Chhajer, Co-founder, Smartstaff, said, “At Smartstaff the vision for us is to facilitate the digital transformation of the workforce management practises of India’s manufacturing and supply chain industries.”
