Freelancer Payments Startup Lystable Raises $10M

Lystable, a freelancer collaboration app that enables managers to monitor profiles, assign work, track invoices and make payments, announced the increase of its Series A funding round to $21 million.

The U.K.-based startup added $10 million to the funding round on Thursday (March 23), doubling the company’s valuation since June 2016.

The additional funding was led by Valar Ventures, which was founded by Peter Thiel, James Fitzgerald and Andrew McCormack, with earlier investors also participating in the round. These included SciFi VC, Kindred Capital and Goldcrest Capital, as well as new investors Glynn Capital and Wilmont Ventures.

Lystable’s total investment capital now stands at $25 million.

“The freelance economy is the new normal and became that way extremely quickly,” Eric Scott, a SciFi VC Partner who is joining Lystable’s board of directors, said in a press release. “Companies at the forefront of this trend are scrapping their spreadsheets and antiquated freelance management systems and opting for Lystable’s freelancer collaboration app to do the job, because it’s so much more efficient and easier to use.”

According to the statement, the new capital will be used to help fuel Lystable’s expansion within the U.S. and help support a new product launch later this year.

The latest release of the PYMNTS.com Gig Economy Index, a Hyperwallet collaboration, revealed that in 2017, gig economy workers with access to smartphones are alone projected to account for more than $680 billion in income.

It’s clear that the trend of companies hiring ad hoc workers to resolve their immediate staffing needs isn’t decreasing any time soon.

But as the demand for gig workers balloons, are current market conditions driving away talent? Eighty-one percent of gig workers today want to be paid faster, but with cash and checks being predominantly used for processing payments, gig workers are left bogged down.

The February 2017 installment took a deep dive into the growing demand for benefits in the gig economy and compared the demand with the size of different market verticals that actively hire gig workers.

Some of the key takeaways from the latest edition of the Index include:

– 47 percent of respondents receive 40 percent or more of their income from gig economy jobs.

– 27 percent of gig workers support themselves through a single gig.

– 65 percent would not quit their gig for a full-time job.
. . . . . . . . . . . .

To download the PYMNTS.com Gig Economy Index, please fill out the form below.