We are happy to announce that we are leading a $4.0m (SAR15m) Pre-Series A round in Sabbar, the leading Saudi-based on-demand staffing marketplace. Through Sabbar, companies can hire gig workers on short notice, taking away the hassle of sourcing, interviewing, training, scheduling, and paying these workers, as well as everything in between.
The gig worker staffing industry in the region is riddled with challenges, ranging from sourcing quality talent to paying and retaining them. Through traditional manpower agencies, it takes companies an average of 45 to 90 days to hire gig workers. Even after these workers have been hired, they have to be trained by the companies, which takes additional resources and time. Moreover, both companies and workers are often not happy with the quality of work, leading to a staggering 70% yearly turnover rate in the F&B and retail industries.
It is clear that this $11b gig worker industry needs a new approach in MENA, which is where Sabbar comes in.
Sabbar looks to tackle all these challenges by offering a deep job platform that takes care of the front-to-back process of sourcing, hiring, paying, and retaining high-quality gig workers. Instead of 90 days, it just takes an average of 4 hours to get a position filled through Sabbar, with 98% accuracy. Instead of having to vet, on-board, and train these workers themselves, companies can rely on Sabbar to do this entire process for them.
In simple terms, Sabbar does the heavy lifting of the entire recruiting process for its partner companies, helping them save significant resources and time while getting high-quality, pre-vetted workers. Sabbar is able to do this more efficiently due to its digitization of the process, leveraging data to continuously optimize and automate various parts of it.
While the need for such a platform is clear, what really excites us about Sabbar is the relentless optimization and iteration that the team does. By continuously listening to on-the-ground feedback from their partner companies and workers, Mohamed, Afnan, and Abdulrahman have grown their company from a “simple” job platform to a full-fledged, end-to-end marketplace that allows companies and workers to find each other easily, and manages everything in between.
This shift has resulted in significant growth in terms of workers, partners, and more. Since its pivot to a marketplace model, the platform has been able to achieve a monthly growth rate of 40%, fulfilling shifts for over 150 customers such as IKEA, Toys "R" Us, Domino’s Pizza, and Tamimi Markets, while ensuring high-quality workers with an on-time arrival rate of 97%.
We are sure that this is just the start, and are incredibly happy to partner with Sabbar together with existing investors Derayah Ventures and SEEDRA Ventures. With more than 70,000 workers on their waiting list, we have no doubts that this company will transform the gig worker staffing industry in Saudi Arabia and beyond. If you are interested in applying for high-quality, part-time jobs through Sabbar, check out their website here.