NEW YORK — Shiftsmart, the leading labor management platform serving the modern workforce, announced today that it raised $95 million in a Series B round of financing. D1 Capital Partners led the round with participation from Imaginary Ventures, Spieker Partners, and S12F, alongside several industry executives and institutions. Founded in 2015, Shiftsmart was built to empower the modern worker by enabling them to maximize work and income opportunities through increased flexibility and choice, while providing employers with the ability to tap into a larger pool of qualified workers across their core labor operations.
Aakash Kumar, CEO and Founder of Shiftsmart, said, “Shiftsmart is building a platform for labor, much like Uber or Airbnb did in their respective verticals by fractionalizing assets down to the unit of consumption to expand the total market size of their industries. In the same way that they transformed cars to rides and homes to trips, we fractionalize hourly work down to shifts instead of jobs, thus creating a larger pool of qualified workers and increasing flexibility for both customers and workers alike. We are grateful to our investors for recognizing that Shiftsmart is playing a pivotal role in meeting the overwhelming demand to reduce friction in end-to-end labor management, especially given current macroeconomic conditions.”
Today, companies across all industries are struggling to keep up with customer demand due to staffing shortages amidst a tight labor market with record low labor force participation and high employee turnover. Enterprises have made headlines in an effort to attract and retain workers, from implementing interview bonuses to funding tuitions, but still find themselves unable to meet staffing needs. Shiftsmart’s core thesis is that these efforts do not address the fundamental evolution of the modern worker, who prioritizes flexibility and independence over a long-term inflexible relationship with a single employer.
To help employers unlock this modern workforce, Shiftsmart has built a platform that pairs core workforce management software with a network of workers, creating a labor marketplace that matches hourly workers with open shifts across a variety of industry verticals and roles. Through the Shiftsmart platform, not only can workers control their own schedules, but companies can fulfill large-scale, complex, dynamic, and time-sensitive staffing requirements with proven workers. By utilizing Shiftsmart, employers benefit from innovative features that include the ability to flex up and down based on a customer’s staffing needs, access to a global labor pool, reduced friction with end-to-end labor management, increased flexibility and agility, and a quick and easy to use interface.
“We’re excited to partner with Aakash and the Shiftsmart team to expand access to their high-quality labor marketplace and help solve a critical need in today’s economy,” said Jeff Lerman from D1 Capital. “With record-high churn rates and job openings in the labor market, we believe there is a pressing need for Shiftsmart’s innovative approach that offers increased flexibility to workers while helping employers fill shifts and create more efficient schedules.”
Shiftsmart operates in a number of industries spanning global audits and inspections, flexible contact centers, logistics and onsite staffing for retailers. The work in retail is particularly critical given the current labor market and the upcoming holiday season. With the number of job openings exceeding the number of people looking for work, retailers are struggling to attract and retain the workers they will need.
Logan Langberg of Imaginary Ventures, who specializes in marquee consumer and retail investments including Glossier and Skims, said, “We’re facing a global labor shortage that has impeded growth for the majority of retailers in our ecosystem. Shiftsmart’s labor platform is not only a timely solution to this ongoing and unsolved crisis, but it addresses the modern and growing workforce, who prioritize flexibility and independence over single employer relationships. At Imaginary, we are blown away by what Aakash and his team have accomplished and believe that Shiftsmart’s focus on high-quality labor positions the company to be fundamental to labor infrastructure in the near future.”
Shiftsmart’s platform of over 600,000 workers has staffed millions of skilled shifts in more than 50 countries and works exclusively with the enterprise, focusing on large scale customers and government institutions. World-class brands and institutions that have trusted Shiftsmart include Circle K, Airbnb, Humana, The RealReal, and the Small Business Administration alongside many others.
Recently Shiftsmart was named to the 2021 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ which honors the most innovative public and private technology companies across North America. The company was also named a finalist in Fast Company 50 World Changing Ideas of 2021: Corporate Social Responsibility.
