Quinyx raises $50m to grow gig platform

2021 has been an interesting year for the gig economy. It was the year that Uber and its competitors, including Just Eat and Glovo, started to take workers’ rights more seriously in Europe.

However, gig workers and the shift-based sectors they work in, like hospitality, have been hit particularly badly by the pandemic, especially in the US.

This, and the health concerns of this type of work, is pushing some to re-evaluate their working situation in the ‘Great Resignation’, thereby creating a situation where restaurants, bars, cafes and other employers are struggling to find and attract workers.

But this is where HR tech can come in useful. While tech “can’t fix the current labor shortage,…it can help employers—from retail stores, to supply chain, to hospitality companies—better manage the employees they have”, noted Battery Ventures general partner Michael Brown.

Hot on the heels of shift management app When I Work raising $200 million from Bain Capital, Brown’s Battery Ventures moved to invest $50 million in Quinyx, an artificial intelligence-powered workforce management platform; this brings its total valuation to $550 million.

Quinyx was founded in 2006 by Eric Fjellborg, who now serves as CEO, when he was working for McDonald’s in Sweden. Fjellborg realized that his managers struggled to organize shifts manually, so he piloted the data-focused technology at a McDonald’s in Sweden and then expanded it out to Denmark and the UK.

The future of Quinyx

This investment comes on the back of a stellar year for Quinyx. It now has over 1,000 customers, including McDonald’s, Domino’s, DHL, Boots and Virgin Atlantic, across Europe and North America.

Both Brown and Fjellborg are very optimistic about Quinyx’s bright future.

Brown added: “We continue to be impressed by Quinyx’s growth and are excited to see the company scale even further in the current economic environment.”

Quinyx is planning to use this investment to continue to innovate and expand its product. Therefore, “supporting our mission to better the lives of millions of hourly workers. Today’s announcement is a game-changer for the workforce management industry and businesses at large,” noted Fjellborg.

Fjellborg continued: “This new frontier we’re about to step into is an incredibly exciting place.

“It’s a place where human tech improves the lives of millions of people on a daily basis. It’s a place where there are no limits to what’s possible.”

Just because gig workers often don’t work at a computer doesn’t mean they don’t need top-notch HR tech to make their working lives seamless and easy.

Maybe better tech will keep workers in the gig economy and encourage others to return to gig work amid the ‘Great Resignation’?