Flexing It, a curated marketplace that connects companies with part-time resources for consulting assignments, has raised $500,000 in angel funding from HCC Infrastructure head Arjun Dhawan, PropTiger.com CEO Dhruv Agarwala and other investors.
Former McKinsey partner Tilman Ehrbeck and J Walter Thompson executive Colvyn Harris also participated in this round, as per a press statement.
The money raised would be deployed to scale up operations and up marketing spend, said Chandrika Pasricha, CEO of Flexing It Services Pvt Ltd.
“The market for project-based, flexible work has been largely unorganised and based on personal networks. I believe curated marketplaces can play a huge role in extracting its potential,†said Ehrbeck.
An alumnus of IIM Bangalore, Pasricha worked with global consulting firm McKinsey for over a decade before starting Flexing It. The startup tries to fill project-based demand for mainstream management skills related to strategy, marketing, finance, HR and product among others. Its proprietary matching algorithm FlexScore makes connections between organisations and professionals. As per the startup’s website, about 12,365 professionals and 1,067 companies are listed on its platform.
“The platform is…for organisations that either don’t have access to good talent or don’t want to take on permanent staff costs. The best of talent is now available on call,†Harris said.
Flexing It counts companies such as Capgemini, Deloitte and Medtronic among others as clients. The startup can be compared with US-based players such as Hourly Nerd, MBA & Co and others. As per Internet Trends Report-2015 published by Kleiner Perkins, about 34 per cent of the US workforce is already freelancing. Forbes estimates this number to balloon to 50 per cent by 2020.
The trend is also catching up in India, especially in the startup community. Several startups are taking the flexi-route to attract talent and cut costs. There is also heightened interest among experienced consultants to work on an ad-hoc basis so that they can pursue other interests.
VendorFrog, an online B2B technology marketplace that connects companies with IT consultants, went live in August.
PropTiger is partly owned by News Corp, which acquired the parent of this website in March.
