For investors in the U.S., it’s a short week, and that means a bit of a venture capitalist slump for B2B startups. Nonetheless, backers from the U.S. pulled through with new backing for the on-demand workforce and two other investments emerged from the U.K. and India. Overall, a few million here and there made for a relatively quiet week in B2B, but it’s better than nothing.
[bctt tweet=”A few million here and there made for a relatively quiet week in B2B venture capital.”]
The week kicked off when another investment hit the on-demand employment market through the $22 million funding round that went to Shiftgig. The Series B financing, announced Tuesday (Nov. 24), was led by several backers, including Renren Inc., Chicago Ventures, DRW Venture Capital and GGV Capital.
According to GGV Capital Managing Partner Jeff Richards, Shiftgig provides businesses with the much-needed service of finding hourly workers — not salaried — a need that has grown since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act, he said, adding that hourly employees are searching for more work, too.
“Hourly workers, since Obamacare, have been facing the reality that employers want to keep them to 29 hours a week, so they don’t have to pay health care,” he said in a statement. “They’re looking for new shifts to fill their income gaps.”
The financing follows some recent developments in the on-demand workforce space. As startups create new methods of bringing these employees to businesses, other companies are looking at ways to solve complex issues around temporary and hourly workers, like payroll and taxes.
On Monday (Nov. 23), U.K.-based Key Capital Partners revealed that it secured more than $83 million in its first round of fundraising towards a $120 million small and medium-sized enterprise fund. The private equity firm is said to be looking to raise the rest of the funds in the next few months.
KCP’s small business fund will focus its investments through backing management buyers and equity release, providing a service that KCP Managing Partner Owen Trotter said is hard to come by for SMEs.
“Having established a strong track record working with entrepreneurial businesses in the lower mid-market, we have developed a real expertise in this important, but underserved, sector, and this is where we want to be,” he said in a statement.
Reports did not indicate who provided KCP’s funding.
And to close out the short week, Wednesday (Nov. 25) reports from Inc42 revealed that content management technology firm Stelae Technologies, based in India and launched by B2B Software-as-a-Service experts, secured an undisclosed amount of pre-Series A funding.
Earlsfield Capital led the investment, which also included Saha Fund, Cross Border Angels and TV Mohandas Pai, a former Infosys executive.
Stelae Technologies offers Khemeia technology that uses artificial intelligence to detect content in documents “like the human eye,” reports said, adding that the tool uses pattern recognition and content analysis algorithms to identify information. It’s a process of content selection and segregation that the company said had, until now, been a manual process. Stelae, however, wants to make this an automated tool for corporations.
“Enterprises are constantly innovating to deliver new value propositions by improving deliverability, building for scalability and assuring reliability,” said a spokesperson for Pai. “In the new API economy, enterprises can now do this by integrating with third-party products and services to release new solutions rather than build everything in house.”
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
Learn More