WorkIndia, a job portal for blue-collar workers, has raised Rs 42 crore (approximately $5.89 million at current exchange rates) from Chinese technology and consumer devices conglomerate Xiaomi.
The Bengaluru-based company will use the funds to enhance its technological infrastructure, strengthen the team and improve matchmaking services and analytics for employers, WorkIndia said in a statement.
“WorkIndia thrives on two aspects -- one, extreme innovation and two, the excitement of becoming a global leader in the blue-collar segment. Xiaomi’s focus on innovation and the disruption they have brought to the market has clear adjacencies with us,” Nilesh Dungarwal, co-founder at WorkIndia, said.
Separately, Xiaomi India managing director Manu Jain said the company was confident in its investment in WorkIndia because of its platform and its ability to leverage smartphone penetration levels in India.
“The cutting-edge technology developed by WorkIndia, utilising geo-positioning and dynamic algorithms, is one of the best in class that we have seen,” Jain added.
WorkIndia, operated by Eloquent Info Solutions Pvt. Ltd, was set up in 2015 by Kunal Patil, Dungarwal, Jatin Jakharia and Soumil Rao. The company says it helps in the placement of delivery boys, office assistants, field sales executives, tele-callers and counter sales people in companies.
The company claims to be India’s largest blue-collar recruitment player and says it records at least 2.1 crore unique application sessions, along with 1.5 crore job seekers across more than 760 cities in the country. According to its website, some of its include Zomato, Ola, Swiggy, HDFC Bank and Café Coffee Day.
In October 2015, WorkIndia raised $500,000 (around Rs 3.25 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Citrus Pay founder Satyen Kothari; Keshav Sanghi, founder of VentureWorks India; Riddhesh Gandhi, founder of Discover Capital; and some senior executives at multinational banks.
Then, in March 2016, it raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Beenext, a Singapore-based early-stage technology fund. In November that year, it also raised an undisclosed amount from Japanese venture capital investor Asuka Holdings.
Xiaomi, meanwhile, has invested in a few startups in recent years. In November last year, reports said that the company was looking to invest in a $75 million (around Rs 538 crore) funding round in bike taxi application Rapido along with other existing investors including Shunwei Capital.
In August 2018, it led a $13.4 million (around Rs 93.6 crore) extended Series A funding round in Bengaluru-based digital lending startup ZestMoney. Others that participated in that round included PayU, Ribbit Capital and Omidyar Network. That month, Xiaomi also took part in a $7 million (around Rs 48 crore) funding round in Hyderabad-based social media and chat entertainment platform Samosa Labs along with venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India.
