Egyptian human resource tech startup, bluworks has raised $1 million in a pre-seed funding round. The round was led by Saudi venture capital firm, Khawarizmi Ventures. The funding round was also supported by Camel Ventures, Acasia Ventures, and a number of angel investors.
The startup says it aims to invest the fund into building and enhancing its product, as well as expanding its team with the ultimate aim of becoming the top destination for companies seeking to optimise the management of blue-collar workers in the region and in need of a process to vet, hire, train, place and manage their workforce.
Speaking about the fundraiser, Co-founder, Farah Osman, while noting that having a strong workforce is integral to building and fortifying sustainable businesses, said the company is excited about the quality of investors they have been able to bring on board.
“We are excited about getting strategic investors on board that can provide us with access to both local and regional markets, to which we are looking to expand. There is no shortage of industry use cases similar to Egypt around the world, and we are eager to tackle them with our innovative workforce management solutions,” Farah said.
how bluworks is managing blue-collar workers
Founded in 2022 by Farah Osman, Hussein Wahdan, and Nour Ahmadein, bluworks, an Egypt-based startup developing blue-collar HRTech SaaS solutions. The startup offers HR and SaaS solutions to organisations to help them optimise costs while leveraging data for decision-making.
Africa and the Middle East are home to over 50 million blue-collar workers. Currently, performance and attendance metrics about hired blue-collar workers are collected manually by several departments across companies through different manual and automated systems.
Given that blue-collar work conditions are very dynamic and can vary from day to day, a very routine task, such as payroll calculation for these workers, becomes incredibly difficult and complex for companies.
Co-founder, Hussein Wahdan noted that with so many HR software on the market, not one is built to manage blue-collar workers. And this is where the HR SaaS startup comes in.
“Since the process of managing this type of workforce is so manual, errors frequently occur, leading to penalties and deducted salaries with no oversight from the workers, causing them to leave and ultimately contributing to high turnover rates. Currently, companies can spend about 7-10 days just closing their payroll accounts, but with bluworks, this time can be cut down to one day – all while leveraging data and insights on their workforce,” Wahdan explained.
bluworks is therefore touted as the only HRTech SaaS platform in the region focused on managing the lifecycle of blue-collar employees in industries such as retail, food and beverage services (F&B), facility management, healthcare, education, and construction. Ultimately, this includes automating various HR and operational tasks in order to help companies optimise costs while leveraging data for decision-making.
To do that, the startup unifies and collects data points for companies employing blue-collar workers through an integrated platform that bridges the gap between operations, HR, and the workers.
Currently, the startup boasts thousands of blue-collar workers on its platform, and tens of clients, such as Crave, Qahwa, and Cilantro, using the platform to manage them. The company is currently focusing on the F&B and retail sectors, with plans to expand to other sectors, such as manufacturing, construction, and facility management.
Speaking on the importance of the HR tech startup and why it was a great investment choice, Venture Partner at Khwarizmii Ventures Ameer Sherif noted that while Egypt has one of the largest workforce populations in the MENA and Africa region, however, there are very few software solutions that are truly localised to suit the workers.
“Like with many emerging markets, solutions to automate workforce management are still lacking. We believe that the bluworks team has the right mix of local understanding, and commercial and technical capability to lead this space in Egypt and later in other regional markets,” Mr Sherif noted.
Managing Partner at Acasia Ventures, Aly El Shalakany, was in tandem with his co-investor, noting that the HR tech startup has identified a real pain point for employers and giving them solutions to their problems.
“bluworks has identified a real pain point for employers and developed a compelling digital solution that focuses on a particular niche. Initial traction is very promising, and we are confident that the team will be able to scale this solution rapidly,” Shalakany said.
See also: How you can obtain the new NIMC multipurpose ID/ATM card
For more such interesting article like this, app/softwares, games, Gadget Reviews, comparisons, troubleshooting guides, listicles, and tips & tricks related to Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS, follow us on Google News, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest.