Singapore’s ‘LinkedIn for blue-collar workers’ gets funding from Captii Ventures

When Rupam Biswas moved to Singapore from India, he found it difficult to get hold of basic household services. “When I asked around, I realized that many also faced the same problem,” he said.

Inspired by his own predicament, Biswas founded Sendhelper, a Singapore-based startup focused on “organizing the unorganized blue-collar and non-executive labor market.” He believes that that segment is fragmented and underserved, particularly in terms of employment platforms.

“We felt that innovation and technology was not fully tapped into in this market. Even regular job boards don’t work well because you can’t really expect a blue-collar worker, who probably doesn’t own a computer, to create a resume on Word, and upload to job boards and monitor ads,” Biswas told Tech in Asia.

To further grow its services, Sendhelper has raised US$443,169 (S$610,000) in seed-funding round led by Captii Ventures. The startup plans to use the fresh capital to grow its services in Singapore, expand to other markets, and launch Sendjobs, its business to business (B2B) platform.

Sendjobs will complement its business to consumer (B2C) platform, Sendhelper. Dubbed as “the LinkedIn for blue-collar workers,” Sendjobs will focus on matching employers with job seekers for non-executive positions in industries such as food and beverage, retail, hospitality, events, logistics, and security. In the last five months, around 500 employers have been onboarded to Sendjobs in Singapore.

The company aims to set up Sendjobs in the Philippines and other English-speaking markets across the world in 2019. It’s also looking to roll out Sendhelper in Hong Kong and other major metropolitan areas in Asia.

Currency converted from Singapore dollars. Rate: US$1 = S$1.38