Instawork – a leading platform for connecting businesses with skilled hourly workers – announced recently it raised $60 million in a Series D funding round led by TCV, with participation from new investors 9Yards Capital, Larry Fitzgerald Jr., and existing investors including Benchmark, Spark Capital, Craft Ventures, and Greylock. And bringing total investment to $160 million, the funding round enables Instawork to accelerate investment in its AI-powered mobile app and platform that connects more than 4 million skilled hourly workers with tens of thousands of businesses.
Recent studies have shown that more than 25% of hospitality businesses and one-third of light industrial businesses have had to forgo revenue due to a lack of staff. But Instawork has allowed businesses to easily manage their fluctuating staffing requirements while providing hourly workers the ability to choose when, where, and how they work the best.
This funding announcement follows Instawork’s record growth in an environment of economic challenges and uncertainty. And while the broader tech community struggled, Instawork achieved 15 times growth over the past 2 years and over 2 million workers joined the app over the last year alone. Fueled by this growth, Instawork is helping staff distribution centers for some of the country’s largest retailers as well as the majority of sports stadiums across the U.S. and Canada.
Instawork is going to invest in additional AI-driven capabilities to connect its partners with workers who both have the right skills to be successful and who reliably show up on time. And Instawork will be releasing new self-serve features, including user-friendly tools to post shifts in seconds, and custom, data-powered interfaces for easy workforce management.
Instawork is going to use the most recent funding round to provide the platform’s over 4 million workers access to unique training and certification opportunities to unlock work for users who are not eligible for certain shifts due to a current lack of certification or if they wish to highlight their certifications outside of the Instawork platform. And a new Instawork debit card is available to qualifying users and services the unique needs of the flexible workforce, such as access to instant pay.
KEY QUOTES:
“The current ways businesses access labor 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.”
— Gautam Gupta, TCV General Partner
“Deploying artificial intelligence to a rich database of signals about the hourly labor force is revolutionizing how businesses connect with the skilled workers they need. Instawork allows businesses to streamline their staffing process, reduce costs, and focus on their top priorities. We provide businesses with a flexible and reliable solution for finding skilled workers, while also empowering local workers to choose the work that best fits their skills and interests.”
— Sumir Meghani, Co-founder and CEO
