Betterplace Buys Oust Labs, Plans To Train & Upskill 100 Mn Blue Collar Workers

Bengaluru-based blue and grey collar workforce management startup Betterplace has acquired micro-learning SaaS platform Oust Labs in an all cash deal. 

This announcement comes just weeks after Betterplace raised $24 Mn in Series C funding round led by Jungle Ventures and 3one4 Capital. 

This acquisition is meant to facilitate digital skilling and training solutions to upskill blue collar workers.

Founded in 2015 by Pravin Agarwala and Uday Singh in Bengaluru, Betterplace began its operations as a background verification company before pivoting into becoming an employee lifecycle management system.

Today, its full roster of services include Hiring, Assessment, Attendance Management, Payroll, Compliance and more. The startup claims to work with more than 1,000 enterprises and has worked with more than 8.1 Mn workers.

Oust Labs is a California based tech startup that has built gamified microlearning courses for its clients’ workforce. Its multilingual authoring tool of Oust Labs allows enterprises to create their own custom content in 35+ languages. The Oust platform is used to upskill over a million users across India and Southeast Asia. 

“Our vision has always been to help every worker thrive in the new economy. Seekhega India, Toh Badhega India”, said Shrikant Latkar, Founder and CEO of Oust Labs. This clearly indicates that this acquisition will be an important addition to Betterplace’s wide repertoire of employee lifecycle management tools.

While most large companies have come to terms with structured performance management and upskilling systems for white collar workers, the same can hardly be said for their approach towards blue collar workers. 

With demand for blue collar workers set to increase by 7 Mn this fiscal quarter, companies will find it difficult to employ sufficiently skilled workers — a need that HR Tech companies will be rushing to fulfil. 

This year has seen the rise of many HR Tech firms that specialise in helping clients deal with a blue collar workforce. In June this year, blue collar recruitment firm Apna received $70 Mn in a Series B round of funding led by Sequoia Capital and Greenoaks Capital.

Smartstaff, another blue collar workforce management startup, raised $4.3 Mn in a seed funding round, earlier today.

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