Instawork, the leading digital marketplace connecting local businesses with qualified professionals across the US, has recently announced that it has raised $60 million in its Series D round led by TCV, with participation from new investors 9Yards Capital, Larry Fitzgerald Jr. Existing investors, including Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, and Greylock also backed the funding round.
With the recent financing, the San Francisco-based company plans to utilize the funds to accelerate investment in its AI-powered mobile app and platform that connects over 4 million skilled hourly workers with tens of thousands of businesses.
Started in 2016 by Sumir Meghani, Instawork is a flexible work app for local hourly workers. Its digital marketplace enables thousands of businesses in the food & beverage, hospitality, and warehouse/logistics industries to fill temporary and permanent job opportunities in more than 30 markets across the US and Canada, connecting them with more than four million workers.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder & CEO of Instawork, Sumir Meghani, said:
Deploying artificial intelligence to a rich database of signals about the hourly labour force revolutionizes how businesses connect with the skilled workers they need. Instawork allows businesses to streamline their staffing process, reduce costs, and focus on top priorities. We provide businesses with a flexible and reliable solution for finding skilled workers while empowering local workers to choose the work that best fits their skills and interests.
The startup believes that its workforce should reflect the vast diversity of the communities it serves and that diverse voices should be elevated and intentionally integrated into our work. It embraces differences and diversity of identity, experience, and thought and actively strives for inclusive behaviours across its company and position. By promoting these values, Instawork aims to create a positive work experience that encourages a sense of belonging.
Gautam Gupta, TCV General Partner, wrote in an announcement:
The current ways businesses access labour is fragmented, manual, and under-penetrated by technology. Similar to other category-defining technology companies with which TCV has partnered, we believe Instawork is dramatically changing its industry by using technology and data to connect businesses with the skilled workers they need.
Instawork is also planning to invest this funding in additional AI-driven capabilities to connect its partners with workers who have the right skills to succeed and reliably show up on time. It will release new self-serve features, including user-friendly tools to post shifts in seconds, and custom, data-powered interfaces for easy workforce management. The firm claims to have achieved 15x growth over the past two years, and more than 2 million workers joined the app over the last year.
In 2021, Instawork had raised $60 million in a Series C financing round led by Craft Ventures, with participation from Greylock, Corner Ventures, Four River Group, WndrCo, and Tilman Fertitta, owner of Landry’s and the Houston Rockets. The startup’s latest funding brings its total raised to $160 million.
