Workmate, on-demand staffer, secures $5.2M in new funding

Workmate, the startup formerly known as Helpster, is banking on the "informal labor sector" of Southeast Asia that is said to make up over half of the area's workforce.

Southeast Asian end-to-end staffing platform Workmate announces that it has closed a Series A funding round of US$5.2 million, led by Atlas Ventures with participation by Gobi Partners and Beacon Venture Capital (Beacon VC), the corporate venture capital arm of Kasikornbank PLC. (KBANK), with existing investors also participating in the round.

The company said that the fresh funds will be used to increase investment in sales, grow the technology team, and expand to new cities.

The investment brings Workmate’s total funding to US$10 million since its launch in January 2016.

Workmate notes that in Southeast Asia, the informal labor sector accounts for more than 50 per cent of the region’s workforce, with approximately US$200 billion in wages paid to informal workers annually. The staffing market for informal labor in the region is expected to double to US$8 billion by 2025.

However, despite the market’s huge potential, it is still bound to the traditional method of finding work and workers – usually through word of mouth – which means that securing reliable and consistent employment remains challenging.

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