Serving the blue-collar workforce, the Egypt-based HRTech SaaS firm bluworks has acquired $1 million in pre-seed funding led by Khawarizmi Ventures, based in Saudi Arabia. Participating in the round were angel investors, Acasia Ventures, and Camel Ventures.
The firm will be able to grow its team and develop its product more thanks to the cash. At the moment, bluworks wants to be the leading platform in the area for businesses trying to maximize the management of their blue-collar labor force.
Bluworks, which was founded by Hussein Wahdan, Nour Ahmadein, and Farah Osman, is dedicated to managing the lifecycle of workers in blue-collar industries such as retail, healthcare, education, F&B, and construction.
To assist businesses optimize expenses and use data for decision-making, this involves automating a variety of HR and operational operations. Additionally, the startup bridges the gap between employees, operations, and HR by unifying and gathering data points for businesses that hire blue-collar workers through an integrated platform.
Wahdan noted in a note that while there are a number of HR software options available, none of them assist in managing blue-collar employees. He clarified that overseeing this kind of workforce is a manual process that is prone to mistakes. Higher turnover rates are the result, which also leads to fines, salary deductions, and a lack of worker control.
Ameer Sherif, a venture partner at Khwarizmii Ventures, observes that “Egypt has one of the largest workforce populations in the MENA and Africa region; however, there are very few truly localised software solutions,”
“Like with many emerging markets, solutions to automate workforce management are still lacking. We believe the bluworks team has the right mix of local understanding and commercial and technical capability to lead this space in Egypt and later in other regional markets.”
Wahdan noted that closing payroll accounts often takes a week to ten days for most organizations. In addition to helping the workforce make use of data and insights, bluworks helps cut this time down to one day.
There are already more than 50 million blue-collar workers in the MENA region. Because the working environment for blue-collar workers is so dynamic and can change on a daily basis, it becomes highly challenging and complex for organizations to do simple tasks like payroll computation for these people.
Managing Partner of Acasia Ventures Aly El Shalakany continues, “bluworks has identified a real pain point for employers and developed a compelling digital solution that focuses on a particular niche,” “Initial traction is very promising, and we are confident that bluworks will be able to scale this solution rapidly.”
The startup is proud to have Qahwa, Cilantro, and Crave among its clientele. The company’s primary markets are food and beverage and retail, but it also has intentions to go into manufacturing, construction, and facilities management.
