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BetterPlace, an edtech company, has recently announced that it has acquired Bueno Finance, a financial services platform providing short-term credit to blue-collar workers across India. According to sources, the merger was driven by the funding winter in the fintech sector, with Bueno needing help to raise funds. BetterPlace, on the other hand, was seeking to expand into the lending space.
Founded by Saurav Gandhi in 2019, Bueno Finance aims to help customers build and develop their creditworthiness. It offers loans to blue-collar workers. As part of the Y-Combinator Winter 2021 batch, Bueno Finance raised about $3 million in total funding from Goat Capital, JAM Fund, Olive Tree Capital, Good Water Capital and angel investors like Kunal Shah and Anupam Mittal.
Bueno Finance and BetterPlace operate in the same segment, catering to the blue-collared workforce and counting food delivery companies such as Swiggy and Zomato as their clients.
BetterPlace, co-founded by Pravin Agarwala and Saurabh Tandon, offers a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. It helps its clients handle the entire lifecycle of their blue-collar workforce by providing them with hiring, background verification and digital onboarding services. The platform provides training, attendance management, payroll, and compliance services. The company’s vision is to empower the Indian frontline workforce with access to a better life.
The latest acquisition marks BetterPlace’s foray into the lending space, as the company has been on an acquisition spree in the past two years. It has acquired several startups, including OLX People, AasaanJobs, Oust Labs, Waah Jobs, OkayGo, and EzeDox. This year, the company expanded into Southeast Asia with two acquisitions: Indonesia-based MyRobin and Malaysia-based part-time staffing and recruitment services startup Troopers. The Bengaluru-based firm has raised about $80 million in total equity from Macquarie Capital, Site Capital Partners, Jungle Ventures, and British International Investment, among others.
