Labor Resource Platform Shiftsmart Raises $95M

The labor-management resource Shiftsmart has raised $95 in a Series B round, funding the New York-based company will use for its software, which pairs hourly workers with open shifts.

As TechCrunch reported on Thursday (Dec. 2), the six-year-old company has put together a network of half a million-plus workers in 50 countries. Shiftsmart says it offers these workers flexibility, as employers get to customize their staffing needs while reducing turnover.

“On the demand side, there were already different pieces in place, but on the supply side — the workers — was what we thought was the innovation,” Aakash Kumar, founder and CEO of Shiftsmart, told TechCrunch. “We are making it easy so you can create a profile, flip an app and work when you want. The gig economy was point-to-point logistics, but the ability to control your own schedule is something we are going to extend forward.”

According to the report, the Series B gives Shiftsmart — whose clients include Airbnb, Deloitte and the Small Business Administration — investments totaling $117 million.

Shiftsmart had raised some capital three years ago, but began looking at a new round as its revenue ballooned each year and employees faced staffing shortages amid this year’s “Great Resignation.”

“We help employers expand the total size of their market by breaking the work down to the shift level,” Kumar said. “Your odds of finding someone to do a three-hour shift a few times a week will be a lot higher than finding someone willing to sign up for 40 hours per week and get paid every two weeks.”

Read more: Fiverr CEO Says Pandemic Reshapes Freelancing to Benefit of Workers and Employers

Of course, not every employer has gone this route. As PYMNTS noted earlier this year, many companies are turning to freelancers.

Take Fiverr, a platform that connects businesses with freelancers who offer digital services. Since it went public in 2019, the company has ballooned three times its pre-COVID size.

“There was a massive tailwind since we took the company public, and the pandemic just accelerated everything, because in a sense, it made the case for everything we’ve been preaching for 10 years,” Fiverr Founder and CEO Micha Kaufman said in an interview with PYMNTS’ Karen Webster.