BetterPlace, an India-based rechtech startup specializing in blue-collar recruitment, is planning to spend $80 million U.S. on international expansion and product development in the next five years.
In an interview with the Hindu Business Line, BetterPlace co-founder and CEO Pravin Agarwala (LinkedIn profile) said it was planning to expand in Southeast Asia and the GCC (Gulf Cooperative Council) region. The company currently operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and India and is set to expand into the Philippines next. He added that a sizeable chunk of the investment would go toward product development, in addition to building new teams.
The investment will be supported by what Agarwala said was 5.5X year-on-year growth in revenue in FY2021-2022 (the 12 months to April 2022): “For us, 5X is a fair assumption on return. For every dollar we invest regularly, we want to be able to make $5,” he noted.
Agarwala said that BetterPlace originally focused on insurance, skilling and mobility solutions for gig workers, but, realizing the liquidity crunch faced by such workers, it later acquired microfinancing platform Bueno Finance and launched BetterPlace Money to provide them with short-term loans.
Founded in 2015 by Agarwala and Saurabh Tandon, BetterPlace is a frontline workforce management company with about four million workers. In December 2022, it raised $40 million in a Series C funding round led by Macquarie Capital and Site Capital Partners, taking its total funding to date to $80 million.
The company recently appointed Ved Antani as CPTO.
