BetterPlace, a frontline workforce management SaaS platform, announced the acquisition of TROOPERS, Malaysia’s flexi talent solutions technology provider. BetterPlace's acquisition of TROOPERS aims to accelerate its presence in the region and establish a stronger foothold in Southeast Asia.

The acquisition will integrate TROOPERS' automated gig matching and rostering features into BetterPlace's comprehensive SaaS (software as a start-up) platform. TROOPERS, founded in 2017, is a flexi-talent solutions platform that offers on-demand, pre-screened, part-time frontline workers to enterprises, enabling them to scale up their gig workforce based on operational demands. With a machine learning algorithm achieving a 95 per cent matching rate, TROOPERS has helped over 50,000 gig workers in Malaysia find gig opportunities since its inception.

“Southeast Asia is expected to see significant growth in demand for gig workers in the next five years, with the gig economy growing by 31 per cent since 2017, well ahead of the growth in the conventional workforce. In Malaysia alone, 84 per cent of hiring managers prefer hiring gig workers,” said Pravin Agarwala, co-founder and group CEO (chief executive officer), BetterPlace.

"We are pleased to offer a robust SaaS solution catering to the growing market demand. Our comprehensive SaaS platform and artificial intelligence (AI) based algorithms, combined with TROOPERS' innovative flexi-talent solutions, enable enterprises to effectively tackle challenges such as high attrition rates, escalating labor and management costs and skilled workforce shortages. Concurrently, frontline workers can optimise their earning potential through TROOPERS' proprietary gig matching algorithms," Agarwala added.

"Majority of the gig workforce in Southeast Asia is informal, making it difficult for workers to discover supplementary jobs or increase their earning potential. Additionally, workers may not have the necessary skills to match growing enterprise requirements. Building on the principles of transparency, accountability and legitimacy, we started TROOPERS to address talent shortage and workforce productivity for enterprises while creating better livelihoods for workers in Malaysia," added Joshua Tan, co-founder and CEO, TROOPERS.