On-demand flexibility with Brigad
In Europe, staff shortages cost an estimated €700bn in lost revenue every year. Nowhere is the problem more acute than in hospitality and healthcare, where the imbalance between the demand and supply of labour is growing at an unprecedented rate, and turnover is at record highs. Looking at the UK and France alone, there are approximately 500k vacancies in hospitality, causing a loss of 15–20% of sales — while in healthcare, 15% of hospital beds are closed due to staff shortage.
This is where Brigad comes in. Brigad connects 15k skilled workers (think: nurses, carers, medical assistants, chefs, waiters,…) with 10k Healthcare and Hospitality establishments looking to staff on-demand short-term jobs with short notice (few hours to a couple of weeks, with less than 5 days notice).
Labour marketplaces have historically been hard to build as churn and limited network effects can be a burden to unit economics. So, why is Brigad different? It comes back to Brigad’s target sectors. In areas such as hospitality and healthcare, the share of temporary workers, specialized required skillset, low job recognition and the local catchment area creates the perfect conditions for a vertical labour marketplace.
Brigad’s end-to-end tech platform removes all friction for talents and enables businesses to source skilled candidates with no operational burden. The platform automates the whole process, including talent sourcing, KYC and vetting, and uses an intelligent matching algorithm and dynamic pricing system. Admin tasks such as invoicing, payroll and insurance are automated and talent is paid within days (vs. weeks without Brigad). Companies can staff a job in a couple of clicks with 92% securing a successful match in a few hours.
Efficient short-notice and short-term staffing allows establishments to maintain operations in spite of staff shortages, without compromising on quality, as Brigad’s vetted talent supply and feedback loop ensures average worker ratings of 4.5/5.
In short, at a time when more and more people are looking for flexible working solutions, and where independent workers are advocating for themselves, Brigad provides convenience, transparency and speed, allowing talent to find more opportunities with better job recognition.
We have been tremendously impressed by Jean, Flo and the rest of the team at Brigad. Their resilience throughout the Covid crisis has been exemplary and a testament to their leadership. From launching their healthcare offering in France and streamlining international operations, they are the poster child of “coming out stronger than you came in”. Their execution has been remarkable — ~3x growth in 2022, high talent NPS (74), a third of workers trusting Brigad’s marketplace as a primary source of income and a high repeat rate of establishments. The powerful network effects enable great unit economics — each worker directly or indirectly promotes Brigad’s value proposition to numerous others during the job, enabling higher job volumes, more accurate matching and ultimately more establishments joining the platform.
At Balderton, we believe we have a responsibility to invest in businesses that address some of the world’s greatest challenges. And Brigad is no exception. From their inception, their north star was to empower talents and they have followed through by becoming a purpose-driven company (société à mission) in 2020. In fact, their last survey pointed out that 2/3rd of the workers on the marketplace would have left their industry if it was not for Brigad.
Given the large market opportunity, unique value proposition and mission-driven founders, we believe Brigad is transformational. And while we have seen verticalised marketplaces thriving in the US, we believe it’s time for a European leader to emerge. We are thrilled to announce that we are leading Brigad’s €33M Series B investment and excited to be part of the journey to make self-employment attractive and accessible to all.
