French startup Brigade It has just raised a new round of financing of 30 million dollars (28 million euros), as well as more than 5 million dollars in debt. The company operates a marketplace for restaurants, caterers, private clinics, nursing homes, and hospitals so they can find freelancers for short-term assignments.
Balderton Capital leads the round, with participation from Wendel Group, Serena Capital and Square Capital.
The startup originally began with the hospitality industry in France so that restaurants could fill gaps in the schedule with additional waiters, chefs or bartenders. A couple of years ago, it expanded into a second industry with care workers.
“Our market is a job that requires some specific skills and that you can’t do sitting at a desk,” Brigad co-founder and CEO Florent Malbranche told me.
With this brief definition, Brigad separates itself from the highly-skilled freelance markets for business consultants and developers like malt and Kite. Nor does it compete with new temporary employment agency companies such as Side and labor talent because you cannot become a sous-chef or a nurse without proper training; sometimes you even need a diploma.
While the healthcare industry is a recent addition, it already accounts for 25% of the missions at Brigad. And if you only look at the applications for job opportunities from partner institutions, that percentage is even higher.
On this front, Brigad competes with mediflash, another French freelance marketplace for healthcare professionals. “We have a good relationship with them. We have talked to each other from the beginning and today we are not covering the same regions,” Malbranche said.
The healthcare and hospitality industries face the same talent shortage issues. People who work in these industries say they are not treated well and have to work long hours for low pay. That is why many workers decide to leave their jobs to become independent freelancers.
In this way, they can manage their schedule in a more detailed way, generate more income and create a different relationship with restaurants, caterers and clinics. “There is a need for change in working conditions. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry is affected even more than the hotel industry,” Malbranche said.
If you talk to hospital workers, chances are they’ll tell you about the vicious cycle of people quitting because they’re fed up, which creates more work for everyone else, which results in more people leaving. Brigad is a solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist, but the problem keeps growing.
“We have more or less the same growth rate for both industries. We grew 2.5 times between 2021 and 2022 in both verticals,” said Malbranche.
There are 10,000 organizations that have used Brigad in the past. On average they offer one mission per week. When they post a job opportunity, Brigad automatically sends this offer to approximately two dozen people.
Only people who live in the area and have the right skills will receive a message. The mission should also pay more than what freelancers are looking for.
After that, the first person to respond is matched with the company. “On average, talent receives 100 assignments per month,” Malbranche said. Brigad keeps 20% of each transaction. The startup has managed 200,000 missions in 2022.
With today’s funding round, the company wants to grow its market with more organizations and more freelancers. It wants to double its two industries in its two main markets: France and the United Kingdom.
If things go well, Brigad could be looking for more financing in a year or two to expand into new markets. For now, it’s time to hire 100 people to scale your market.
