French Startup Brigad Raises $35M to Close Hospitality Staffing Gap

French startup Brigad has raised $35 million to expand its freelancer staffing platform.

The company, which connects hospitality and healthcare workers to businesses in need, announced the funding on its website Thursday (Feb. 16), saying it would use the money to double its workforce and upgrade its platform.

While the countries where Brigad operates — France and England — are seeing shortages of workers for their hospitality, healthcare and social services, the company argues the problem goes beyond a lack of workers.

“The problem is the lack of care for and appreciation of the talents working these industries,” Brigad said. “This directly translates from low pay, demanding working hours and a poor work-life balance.”

And that leads to people leaving industries they love, the company argues. Brigad says it combats this issue by connecting businesses with “reliable self employed professionals” who can choose to work according to their schedules.

As PYMNTS has written, there’s another solution that can help the hospitality and dining industries deal with worker shortages: instant payments — in the form of tipping.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Brian Hassan, co-CEO of instant cashless tipping software firm Kickfin, said that much of the media attention around tipping is focused on navigating the digital tipping culture that became popular following the pandemic.

“You really can’t get a cup of coffee anymore, anywhere without being asked to tip a few bucks,” Hassan said. “…From our perspective, this is giving the ability for the customer to show gratitude to the hospitality employee.”

Hassan said estimates indicate restaurants and coffee shops spend as much as $5,500 per employee to hold onto their staff.

“So, if there’s any way that they can reduce what is a multi-hundred percent turnover year over year on labor by saying instead of paying you $15 an hour, perhaps you could take home $20,” then that’s simply smart business, he said.

Another problem affecting gig workers, PYMNTS wrote recently, is payroll delay which recent research suggests is rampant among American workplaces.

Studies have found that nearly three-quarters of America’s freelancers have not gotten paid on time, with a fifth of them receiving pay one day late and 16% saying they are regularly not getting paid for up to two months after they expected. With 59% said their clients currently owe them more than $50,000 for completed work.