BII's investment in Awign, Reimagining the Future of Work!

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TLDR

Bertelsmann India Investments (BII) on Why We Invested in Awign- Reimagining the Future of Work

• India's gig economy has existed for decades. What has changed is the infrastructure around it. Jio-induced digital adoption and pandemic-induced tailwinds have made work-from-anywhere and work-for-anyone a structural reality, not just a trend.
• Almost 8 million people are currently part of India's gig workforce, and gig workers are estimated to comprise 30% of India's non-agricultural workforce in the coming years. The workforce is expected to grow to 23.5 million by 2029–30. The demand and supply dynamics are occurring simultaneously: enterprises require cost flexibility and higher-quality output, which they must obtain externally, while labor seeks greater flexibility and a more meaningful income. Both are addressed by project-based, need-based work, and no company in India is better equipped to command this moment than Awign.
• Awign is India's largest tech-driven on-demand work fulfillment platform, offering and operating a stellar gig workforce ready to be deployed on demand to serve enterprises' core business functions at scale across the country. Its own tech stack breaks down any large task into smaller, manageable gigs and automates quality checks throughout the process. The result: best-in-class task success rates and long-term customer stickiness, making Awign truly defensible. On the supply side, Awign offers real, sustainable earning potential to a wide-ranging community of graduate students, blue-collar workers, domain experts, homemakers, and retired workers, truly creating jobs for the masses.
• The co-founding team of Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh, and Praveen Sah brings together IIT Ropar alumni with strong tech DNA and a deep understanding of both clients and workers. Under their leadership, Awign has grown its revenue 4x over the past year and is on track to build a network of over 1 million gig workers.
• The bet reflects Bertelsmann India Investments' commitment-driven investing philosophy. Awign is creating a game-changing business with an impressive tech platform, scalability, strong management, and a workforce ready for gigification. BII is thrilled to embark on this journey.

llion people are a part of India’s gig workforce, which will grow much further. It is estimated that gig workers will comprise 30% of the country’s non-agricultural workforce in the coming years. We see a massive rise in the demand and supply side for the gig economy. Enterprises are increasingly looking to make costs variable while seeking higher quality output. Project-based work solves both needs as workers are deployable on-demand, and enterprises need not possess all core capabilities in-house. On the worker side, people demand greater flexibility and quality in their work. Additionally, some workers may not want to or cannot seek permanent employment.

Gig work is at the cusp of exponential growth, and Awign is well-positioned to spearhead the movement to organize this sector. Awign is India’s largest tech-led on-demand work fulfillment platform. It provides and manages a readily deployable pan India gig-workforce to fulfill tasks across several core functions for enterprises while providing higher quality outcomes. Awign’s outcome ownership, coupled with its ability to train and effectively break down tasks for the gig-worker, allows it to foster best-in-class task success rates and thus ensure long-term customer stickiness. Awign is committed to enabling enterprises to run their businesses at scale by tapping into the largest distributed workforce in the country.

On the supply side, it provides meaningful work and sustainable income opportunities to a diverse cohort of gig-workers, graduate students, blue-collar workers, domain experts, home-makers, and retired professionals. It holds true to its vision of creating a workforce for the future and attempts to make gig work more accessible to the untapped segments of the labour force.

At Bertelsmann India Investments, we are extremely excited to partner with Awign for many reasons. The company’s proprietary tech stack converts any large task into smaller gigs. The platform has all the necessary quality controls automatically set up along the process and intelligently guides the worker to successful task completion, truly democratising work for millions.

The resilient leadership group comprising of IIT Ropar alums – Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh & Praveen Sah are key to the company scaling to a 1mn+ gig worker base as well as achieving 4x growth in revenues over the last year. The team at Awign has a deeply engrained tech DNA as well as an exhaustive understanding of the needs of their clients and workers.

We believe that with a robust tech platform, a scalable business model, able leadership, and strong tailwinds from a workforce ripe for gigification, Awign is on its way to building a disruptive enterprise for the future.