India-based blue-collar recruitment platform BetterPlace has acquired microfinancing startup Bueno Finance Inc., website LiveMint reports, citing “a person familiar with the matter.”
Founded in 2019, by Saurav Gandhi and Sandeep Arora (the latter has since left the company), Bueno Finance provides loans to blue-collar workers, while BetterPlace provides staffing services.
Having raised $3.0 million U.S. in a funding round in 2021, Bueno Finance fell on hard times amid a “funding winter,” the website noted.
If confirmed, this deal would be Bengaluru-headquartered BetterPlace’s third M&A transaction in 2023 to date, following its acquisition of Indonesia-based MyRobin and Malaysia-based Troopers. Like BetterPlace, both of these companies specialize in blue-collar recruitment.
In December last year, BetterPlace partnered with British International Investment with the aim of upskilling and finding work for 100,000 women by 2024. It topped off a year of multiple acquisitions with the $40 million Series C funding round.
To date, the company, which was founded by Pravin Agarwala and Saurabh Tandon in 2015, has raised a total of about $80 million. It currently manages about four million frontline workers.