SaaS startup BetterPlace has acquired TROOPERS, a recruitment and job placement platform based in Malaysia. This acquisition will allow TROOPERS to integrate its product offering into BetterPlace’s comprehensive SaaS platform. The deal follows BetterPlace’s acquisition of blue-collar workforce fulfillment platform MyRobin in February.
BetterPlace, founded in 2015 by Pravin Agarwala and Uday Singh, is a workforce management platform that offers background verification, hiring, onboarding, upskilling, and productivity management services. Its B2C platform Rocket helps enterprises upskill frontline workers and provides access to a pre-trained workforce.
According to Agarwala, Southeast Asia is expected to see significant growth in demand for gig workers in the next five years, with the gig economy growing by 31% since 2017, ahead of the growth in conventional workforce. He added that in Malaysia alone, 84% of hiring managers prefer hiring gig workers.
BetterPlace claims to have boarded over 30 million workers on its platform and has more than 1,100 companies as clients. The startup has secured over $91 million in funding so far, with investors such as Jungle Ventures, Unitus Ventures, British International Investment, 3one4 Capital, and CX Partners.
TROOPERS, founded in 2017 by Joshua Tan and Kelvin Lee, is an HRTech platform that helps businesses find gig workers on its platform. It claims to have registered more than 180,000 verified workers and recorded over 200,000 shifts taken by registered gig workers from its mobile app. TROOPERS also asserts that it has provided work to more than 50,000 gig workers to date.
The acquisition of TROOPERS will allow BetterPlace to expand its presence in Southeast Asia and capitalize on the growing gig economy in the region. With the integration of TROOPERS’ product offering, BetterPlace will be able to offer a more comprehensive workforce management platform that addresses the needs of both employers and gig workers.
