TapChief Raises $1.5 Mn From Blume Ventures For Network Expansion

Bengaluru-based gig worker and freelancer marketplace TapChief has announced raising $1.5 Mn from early-stage venture capital firm Blume Ventures. Through this investment, Sanjay Nath, the managing partner of Blume Venture will be joining the company’s board.

The company will be utilising the funds to expand its network of professionals, freelancers and talent, enhance product offering and integrate technology solutions with existing enterprise management systems.

TapChief cofounder Shashank Murali said that the company aims to enable Indian working professionals access to a broad spectrum of gigs in a seamless manner at the right income benchmarks. “One in five professionals globally today are independent and this is expected to grow to 50% by the next ten years,” he added.

Founded in 2016 by Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna and Arjun Krishna. The company enables businesses to source and shortlist talent, independent professionals, industry experts to either consult or work on specific projects across various fields, including sales, marketing, strategy, technology, finance and operations among others, purely on budget and project duration.

Nath said, with nearly 25% of organisations expected to have more than one-third of their workforce as independent professionals in the coming years, the future of work is crucial for our investment.

Previously, the company has raised $650K from prominent investors such as Paytm, 500 Startups, Cred founder Kunal Shah and former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari among others. The company is backed by other investors like NuVentures, SucSeed Venture Partners and Stanford Angels, a total of over 50 investors.

Currently, TapChief claims to have more than 100K professionals on its platform, earning $2 Mn across more than 25K gigs or freelancing jobs on its platform. According to TapChief, the adoption for experienced talent is on the rise among technology, product, learning and development and marketing teams, specifically in the sectors like SaaS, ecommerce, FMCG, media and education among others.

Additionally, the company also provides an array of proprietary technology solutions to support, manage and analyse the complete lifecycle of freelance work starting from discovery to payments  Some of their clients include Unilever, Deloitte, Redbus, upGrad and Dunzo.

As per the Professional Gig Economy 2018-2019 Report Card by gig platform Flexing it, approximately 72% of all gig projects were in large corporates and professional service firms in 2018 to 2019, compared to 52%, two years back. By 2025, the Indian freelancer market is expected to grow to a $20-30 Bn. There are a lot of freelance marketplace startups burgeoning in the space.

In September, freelance marketplace GigIndia raised a strategic round of funding from S Ramadorai, former Tata Consultancy Services CEO; Kiran Deshpande, former CEO of Tech Mahindra; Ravi Nigam, ex-MD and cofounder of Tasty Bite Eatables; and Shashank Deshpande, cofounder of Clarice Technologies.

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