MakeTimePay, a Malaysian hiring portal for gig work, said Monday it has secured an undisclosed funding from Dutch serial-entrepreneur and Singapore-based venture capital firm Impiro Managing Partner Simon Landsheer.
MakeTimePay who did not disclose the funding amount said the investment is “significant”.
The new funding will be used to grow the company’s team, expand its platform capabilities and make investments in customer acquisition, the company said in a statement.
“There is a huge shift underway in how businesses are using talent, and MakeTimePay is leading this change by providing flexible work arrangements for both companies and individuals,” said Landsheer.
Because of Covid-19 and the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), he said, an unprecedented number of Malaysians are now forced to seek extra cash to be able to get by.
“Right now, the easiest way for anyone to earn extra cash is to be a gig worker delivering food or packages, or driving rideshare. But this means that a large number of qualified and professionally-skilled people engaged in this work are underemployed.
“They are forced into earning less per hour of work than they should be, and that is because they simply cannot connect to the many income-generating opportunities that exist out there. MakeTimePay provides that connection and helps anyone interested in monetising their free time,” he said.
MakeTimePay is a gig employment portal that offers work options to individuals and companies from all industries, providing gig work opportunities to people of all skillsets and from all ranks. Launched earlier this year, the portal already has over 121,000 income possibilities listed.
“This means that anyone looking for additional income can find some work of interest and value without having to waste precious time visiting an array of sites, ” said Landsheer.
“MakeTimePay democratizes work opportunities and gives everyone a chance to make some money according to their proper capabilities and worth. That is what drew me to this venture. They are solving a problem that will not disappear with the end of Covid measures and restrictions. Gig work for all skills and ranks is the future of work,” he added.
According to him, researchers out of the United States have already forecasted that by 2025, at least half of the American workforce will be employed on a gig basis.
He, who has been based in Malaysia for over 11 years now, said that he believed that the future of work was gig employment and that the employer preference for offering and the employee preference for requesting short term contracts would spread across Asia very rapidly.
Meanwhile, MakeTimePay Co-Founder Shahryn Azmi said that securing external funding is a normal part of a fast growing a start-up.
“On our journey, we have really met a lot of potential investors but Simon was quick to fully understand the potential for the business and was totally aligned with our mission. Our fit with Simon and his ability to contribute is really extraordinary. We are extremely fortunate that he has made this decision to come onboard,” he said.
MakeTime Pay is a web and mobile app-based “on-demand work” ecosystem set up with the specific objective of empowering people directly affected by the pandemic as well as by the upcoming IR4.0 revolution. It offers a set of innovative features that will help its subscribers, both seekers and posters, to find on-demand tasks and opportunities that are well matched to their skills, their interests and their free time.
Impiro is a Singapore based investment firm focusing primarily on pre-seed and seed round opportunities across the tech sector in Southeast Asia, the surrounding region and beyond.