The Egypt-based HRTech SaaS startup bluworks, which serves the blue-collar workforce, has raised $1 million in pre-seed funding led by Saudi Arabia-based Khawarizmi Ventures. Acasia Ventures, Camel Ventures, and angel investors also participated in the round.
The funding will help the startup further build its product and expand its team. Currently, bluworks aims to be the top platform for organisations looking to optimise their blue-collar worker management in the region.
Founded by Hussein Wahdan, Nour Ahmadein, and Farah Osman, bluworks focuses on managing the lifecycle of blue-collar employees in – facility management, retail, healthcare, education, F&B, education, and construction.
This includes automating various HR and operational tasks to help companies optimise costs and leverage data for decision-making. The startup also unifies and collects data points for companies that employ blue-collar workers through an integrated platform, bridging the gap between workers, operations, and HR.
In a note, Wahdan added that several HR software solutions are currently in the market, but none help manage blue-collar workers. He explained that managing this type of workforce is done manually and is prone to errors. This, in turn, leads to penalties, deducted salaries, and no oversight from the workers, which causes higher turnover rates.
“Egypt has one of the largest workforce populations in the MENA and Africa region; however, there are very few truly localised software solutions,” notes Ameer Sherif, a Venture Partner at Khwarizmii Ventures.
“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 added most organisations take a week to 10 days to close their payroll accounts. bluworks helps reduce this time to a day and also helps leverage data and insights into the workforce.
Currently, the MENA region is home to over 50 million blue-collar workers. Given that blue-collar work conditions are very dynamic and can vary daily, a routine task, such as payroll calculation for these workers, becomes incredibly difficult and complex for companies.
“bluworks has identified a real pain point for employers and developed a compelling digital solution that focuses on a particular niche,” adds Aly El Shalakany, Managing Partner at Acasia Ventures. “Initial traction is very promising, and we are confident that bluworks will be able to scale this solution rapidly.”
The startup boasts a clientele like Qahwa, Cilantro, and Crave. The company focuses on F&B and retail but plans to expand to other sectors, such as manufacturing, construction, and facility management.
