Betterplace Safety Solutions Private Limited

Improve access to higher quality employment experience for blue-collar workers by growing the company’s three verticals of Hire (worker sourcing and onboarding), Manage (payroll and compliance), and Engage (training, credit, insurance, and healthcare access via partners).

• Catalysing markets: As a first-mover in the space for end-to-end employment solutions for the blue-collar sector in India, BetterPlace can help prove the viability of this business model, spurring replication by other players. Early signposts of success are linked to the immediate growth and commercial success of the company. In the longer-term, success would be enhanced job quality standards for workers and greater compliance with labour laws across India.

Pan-India. Target customer mix within three years: 80 per cent India, 20 per cent South East Asia and Middle East. Within five years: 65 per cent India, 35 per cent South East Asia and Middle East.

Blue-collar workers, many of whom are likely to be living on less than $5.5 per day; 50 per cent of workers earn less than INR 21,000 per month month and 67 per cent of workers are unskilled or semi-skilled with 46 per cent of workers having completed 8th grade or less. 85 per cent of workers are below the age of 35 and the gender mix is 68 per cent men, 32 per cent women.

We expect the business to enable 25,000 placements per month by FY22, up from 5,000 per month currently, and 1.6 million total placements by FY25.

Training and upskilling: we expect 1.3 million workers to be trained by FY25, up from 750,000 in FY20.

Financial and healthcare services: Expected to reach 30,000 workers by FY21, up from 20,000 in FY20, with a total reach of 1.4 million by FY25.

Expected to be significant as workers experience improved regularity and transparency of income and formal contracts that are in line with local regulatory frameworks. Impact deeper for previously unemployed, workers in the informal economy or workers with previously lower income. Impact expected to be deep where workers gain enhanced access to financial services, healthcare and social security and enhanced employability (through upskilling and formalised track record). Lasting effects are expected on the labour market if the model is sustained and/or replicated.

• Financial additionality: Allocation in the round has been relatively competitive, although we are confident that BII is not crowding out commercial investors.
• Value additionality: As part of an environmental and social action plan (ESAP), we will work with 3one4 to consider best practice customer protection principles in the roll-out of ancillary financial service offerings for workers. We will also encourage worker survey implementation to validate depth of impact over time

n/a

Execution Risk

• risk of impact not materialising if company fails to deliver across verticals. This risk is linked to commercial risks and is to some extent mitigated by the quality of the solution provided (evidenced by customer references) and first mover advantage.

Unexpected Impact Risk

• risk of adverse impacts from enabling easier access to temporary/part-time worker supply for large corporates, lowering company incentives to Increase proportion of permanent jobs and associated income stability. risk mitigated in part by Betterplace’s aim to drive up job quality standards through their platform design and offerings, but some Unexpected risk linked to corporate customer practices is likely to remain.

Unexpected Impact Risk

• risk linked to ancillary financial services such as credit provided through third parties on the platform, negatively impacting workers if product offerings are not transparently marketed. Mitigation linked to implementation and monitoring of adequate customer protection principles.