Bangalore-based start-up, VOIZ – a marketplace for gig work professionals has raised seed funding of Rs 15 crores ($ 2 million) led by Omidyar Network India with participation from other investors. The company will use the funds to scale up its technology, onboard more talent on the platform, and expand their market presence.
Founded by Rajesh Bernard, VineetPatil, and Sandeep Nyamati, VOIZ connects businesses with independent grey-collared professionals for work fulfilment of online jobs like customer service, tele-calling, sales, data entry, recruitment, virtual assistance, tech support, and online reputation management. By making it easier for companies to hire gig workers in more traditional roles, VOIZ is reimagining the entire lifecycle of entry-level jobs.
Launched in July 2021, VOIZ has onboarded 100+ clients including some of the well-known unicorns in e-commerce, edtech, food tech, fintech, and logistics tech industries, and has more than 1 lakh+ independent professionals signed up for gig work.
In a report published by NITI Aayog in June 2022, there were 68 lakh gig workers in India in 2020 which is expected to grow to 2.35 crore workers by 2030. A significant segment of this workforce is expected to be in the remote workspace for simple transactional work and VOIZ with its unique offerings in the grey-collar workforce market is poised to take advantage of this explosive growth.
“There are very few platforms out there building for the future of work. Our vision is to disrupt the grey collar gig workforce economy and create employment for over 3 million independent professionals in the next 5 yrs. We are excited to partner with Omidyar Network India in our next phase of growth. VOIZ believes that the future of work for the grey collared gig workforce space is digital, remote, powered by gig, enabled by gamification that can have a huge social impact in employing mobility challenged workforce across the world” said Rajesh Bernard, Co-founder, and Chief Executive Officer at VOIZ.
“Our supply pool, which is mostly made up of 30+ female, secondary incomes, gives us a big first advantage in delivering quality and quantity. The next thing is how templatized the jobs are to be able to scale significantly, and we are working on it relentlessly as we speak. The tech in this space will mature over the next 3-5 years and we seem to be in the right place at the right time to make a disruption. With ONI coming in, the next 12 months are going to be exciting” said VineetPatil, Co-founder, and Chief Business Officer at VOIZ.
“We are excited to back Rajesh and the team at VOIZ in their mission to generate livelihoods for thousands of gig workers from the ‘Next Half Billion’ segment. It is bringing into the workforce women who prefer to work from home on flexible projects and equipping them with the right tools and training. We have been impressed by the depth of offering and the range of clients being served on the platform. We are happy to support them on their goal to become the #1 destination for gig workers in India” said BadriPillapakkam, Partner at Omidyar Network India.
VOIZ is a ‘future of work’ platform operating in the grey collared segment of the gig work landscape. VOIZ enables work completion of simple online jobs on its platform VOIZ (voizworks.com) via gig work professionals.
VOIZ operates in eight specific business processes: tele-calling, customer service, sales, recruitment, data entry, technical support, executive assistance, and online reputation.
Omidyar Network India invests in bold entrepreneurs who help create a meaningful life for every Indian, especially the hundreds of millions of Indians in low-income and lower-middle-income populations, ranging from the poorest among us to the existing middle class. To drive empowerment and social impact at scale, we work with entrepreneurs in the private, non-profit and public sectors, who are tackling India’s hardest and most chronic problems. We make equity investments in early-stage enterprises and provide grants to non-profits in the areas of Digital Society, Education, Emerging Tech, Financial Inclusion, Cities & Innovation, and Property Inclusivity. Omidyar Network India is part of the Omidyar Group, a diverse collection of companies, organizations and initiatives, supported by philanthropists Pam and Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay.