Tech firm lands £1.5m as it looks to expand services
A technology start-up has landed £1.5m of funding in order to deliver on a series of major contract wins.
Manchester based Broadstone is looking to scale up operations and to accelerate the development of its products and staff.
The funding takes the total raised by Broadstone to £2.5m to date.
The latest investment was made by existing investors Maven Capital on behalf of NPIF – Maven Equity Finance (‘’NPIF’’), part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, along with a number of angel investors.
Investors include Peter Searle, the former UK chief executive of temporary staffing agency Adecco.
In just under two years since launch, Broadstone’s platform has gained 30,000 users in the UK looking for shift-based work in regulated sectors.
The company’s ‘Labour-as-a-Service’ platform, draws on data, automation and gamification to connect large corporate organisatons, to peole looking for temporary work.
The platform currently focuses on regulated industries and allows organisations to access a pool of qualified and compliance tested talent – saving companies the time, money and effort of engaging traditional temporary staffing agencies.
Job seekers benefit by being able to go through one simple vetting process and gain access to work directly from their phones for multiple companies.
In addition, they can also see how much they’ve earnt from a shift and have the ability to drawdown their earnings quickly and seamlessly.
In recent months, the company has won contracts with major global organisations G4S, ISS World and OCS – this meaning it now has five of the top 10 security companies in the UK as clients.
Broadstone plans to extend its operations into the Facilities Management and cleaning sectors in 2020.
Co-founder and chief executive Tom Pickersgill said: “Labour-as-a-Service is growing fast in recognition as a term, and as the market leader in regulated industries we are well-placed to strengthen our position.
“We’ve recently seen Uber moving into this market with Uber Works, demonstrating the model’s strategic importance. In fact, The Economist predicts that by 2029 all workers will be listed on at least one labour platform – this presenting Broadstone with a huge market opportunity.
“The investment has come at a crucial time in our evolution as it will allow us to accelerate the creation of a new product roadmap and roll out a number of new capabilities for our expanding customer base of global players. Winning contracts with organisations like G4S and OCS, gives us a real opportunity to expand our operations into multiple sectors and geographies, whilst giving us the scale to fundamentally redefine the way people search for work, get paid and prove they qualify for roles. Longer-term we have ambitious plans to establish our model in key markets – the US being one we want to move into by 2021.”
Peter Searle added: “The additional funding that Broadstone has secured will support it in building on a proven tech-driven model, and innovate the temporary staffing market further to support different sectors including cleaning, catering and warehouse operatives.
“It’s providing an end-to-end staffing management tool that’s challenging traditional methods of temporary staffing – much like FinTech has challenged the traditional banking industry. It’s very exciting to see how quickly the company is growing, and the size of clients its attracting at this relatively early stage.”
