Workiz raises $ 40 million in response to a boom in demand

We hear a lot about how big companies are embracing digital, but this is not a new trend. Currently a startup ie

Building improved productivity tools for a specific offline segment of the workforce - home service providers - presented

a round of funding in response to high demand for its technologies

Workiz, which provides tools to home care teams to help schedule appointments, calculate expenses, invoice for work and other tasks, has secured $ 40 million in capital, which it will use to grow into other categories of home care services and roll out more features.

The Covid-19 epidemic has benefited the company both in terms of bringing in new business - healthcare is a growing sector, according to CEO Adi Azaria in an interview - and improving interaction with people who currently use the platform. Carpet cleaners, electricians, plumbers, locksmiths and other home care providers are increasingly using virtual services to reduce interaction in what is already a very physical market. The Tel Aviv-based, San Diego-based company is now largely focused on the North American market, where it has 100,000 customers, which in turn has a total customer base of 17 million end consumers.

The C-Series round is led by Lead Edge Capital, a leading growth investor that has previously funded Alibaba, Spotify, Asana and Toast. Other investors in this round have not been announced, although Workiz's Series B (which ended in February this year) includes New Era Capital Partners, Aleph, Magenta Venture Partners, Maor Investments and TMT Investments.

Azaria will not disclose Workiz's value, except to say that it has quintupled since Series B. According to PitchBooks statistics, Series B was valued at $ 40.7 million, giving the company a total valuation of $ 200 million. This is hardly surprising given that Azaria stated that the company expanded by more than 200 percent in its primary market during the previous 24 months, with a net inventory ratio of 180 percent. "We were contacted proactively for this round, and it was closed for two weeks," he continued.

Automation is an area where Workiz uses more technologies from the commercial IT world. The company develops new tools for employees to design their own workflows, where they can "set up and forget" various tasks such as invoicing and then complete these invoices, or automatically schedule meetings depending on customer and professional availability. This, according to Azaria, feeds directly into one of the industry's biggest pain points: staff shortages and the issues of human capital in general in this sector.

"Getting more working hands (more technicians), training them and so on is the hardest part of this job," he said. "Wages have skyrocketed and in some circumstances our customers have simply not found suitable employees." As a result, we help them with automation to reduce the amount of tedious work they have and let them focus on the real task rather than the back office.

"The most crucial thing is to get back to a client, but they often do not," he said. "It happens all the time, and they lose their jobs." So we created an automated response system, similar to Calendly but for support teams. "Workiz has already developed about 100 automation templates and plans to add more, he says. Those who use these automations often have up to ten already.

"We are pleased to partner with Workiz given the significant market opportunity and innovative platform that combines sophisticated automation software with telephone systems and payment management," said Lead Edge Capital's Avery Rosin in a statement. "The company's rapidly growing customer list is a tribute to the benefit that Workiz provides to all home care teams, and we are excited about the company's next high-growth chapter as it delivers its revolutionary solutions in the service management market."