Having acquired a majority stake in Indonesia-based MyRobin in February in a cash-and-stock deal, marking its entry into southeast Asia, BetterPlace, an India-based startup specializing in blue-collar workforce management, has now acquired Malaysia-based part-time staffing and recruitment-services company Troopers.
Although financial terms were not disclosed, website Tech in Asia reported that a source had told it that the deal valued Troopers at between $15 million and $20 million U.S.
Neither company issued a comment on the acquisition.
Founded in 2020, MyRobin provides on-demand job marketplace services, while Troopers is a part-time staffing and recruitment service that was founded in 2017 by Joshua Tan and Kevin Lee.
BetterPlace provides an SaaS platform for frontline-workforce provision.
In a previous interview with Tech in Asia, BetterPlace co-founder and CEO Pravin Agarwala (LinkedIn profile) said the company was also seeking to expand into Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines and was planning to invest more than $50 million in Southeast Asia during the following three years.
In the longer term, the company wants to expand into the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
In late 2022, BetterPlace raised $40 million U.S. as part of a Series C+ funding round.
“As the largest player in Asia today, we are pleased to welcome MyRobin to the BetterPlace family and advance our vision towards formalizing the frontline workforce globally. With our technology and MyRobin’s expertise in operating in Indonesia, we can introduce equal opportunity to the frontline segment,” Agarwala commented when the MyRobin deal was announced.
