Berlin-based Zenjob has raised €45M in a growth financing round. The staffing marketplace that became a saviour for a lot of folks in Germany during the COVID-19 lockdown plans to use the new funding to accelerate its expansion in Europe.
Matching workers with temporary side jobs
Zenjob is a digital platform that matches workers with temporary side jobs in growth industries. With the new funding, the platform is planning to expand in Europe. The startup will also use the growth fund to scale its platform and add new data-based automation features for its fast growing customer base.
As part of this new strategy, Zenjob plans to expand to new cities in Germany and the Netherlands. The startup also plans to bring the marketplace to the UK later this year and expand to match jobs in new categories. Since its founding in 2015, Zenjob says it has matched over 1 million jobs in Germany and the Netherlands.
In order to improve its matching algorithm, the startup is also planning to invest in the extension of its technology platform. The funding will also be used to grow the team responsible for its new modular platform architecture, the matching algorithm, and new automated services.
Fritz Trott, co-founder and CEO of Zenjob, says, “The growing demand for temporary work offers an opportunity to help people book reliable jobs with the click of a button while offering benefits like faster payouts and a steady stream of income. It’s a win-win situation, both for companies and our talents. For us, this is the foundation to grow our platform and bring our services to new cities and countries.”
Zenjob: what you need to know
Zenjob can be described as a recruitment platform that uses a marketplace model to match workers with temporary side jobs. It is a recruitment platform designed for a new set of users who are looking to work at their own will, at their own time and in their areas of interest.
The platform offers jobs in a number of growth areas such as e-commerce, logistics, retail, and service industries. The platform says it is helping more than 2,500 companies in more than 10,000 locations find talents. The biggest USP of Zenjob is its fully digital operation where workers can do everything, from signing the contract to receiving payment, on a single app.
The platform also matches people with the jobs that suit them and does not require application like traditional agencies. Zenjob claims over 40,000 workers use its platform each month to book side jobs.
The startup says workers on its platform get paid 50 per cent of the salary within 72 hours after a fulfilled shift. Zenjob also says that its service has an average rating of 4.25 out of 5 across one million matched jobs.
Investors
The growth round was led by Aragon with contributions from all existing investors. According to Crunchbase, Zenjob has raised a total of $107M from nine investors including Acton Capital, Atlantic Labs, Forestay, and AXA Venture Partners, who participated in this round.
“We believe the way we work is changing profoundly. With companies facing a growing shortage of talent, and ‘talents’ seeking more flexibility, an ‘on-demand’ workforce will be one of the main features of what we call work 3.0. ZenJob has developed a data-driven jobs marketplace to support both talents and companies as they transition to a more flexible and technology-enabled model. We are excited to support ZenJob as it accelerates its ambition to disrupt flexible work across Europe and to build on its motto to ‘put talents first’,” says Anne Dias, founder and CEO of Aragon.
