No laptop, no problem

• You may have heard of remote employees, but what about deskless workers? They are usually on the move and don’t have constant access to a laptop, and they make up the majority of the global workforce!
• Yet, many employee communication, engagement, and retention tools were created with the assumption that workers spend most of their time at desks on a computer. Launched in November 2022, 500-backed Mercu designed their enablement platform specifically for the deskless workforce.
• The team raised US$1.6M in seed funding from 500 Global, TEN13, Flying Fox Ventures, Archangel Ventures, XA Network, and returning investor Sequoia Capital India.
• Mercu is not even a year old, but already counts companies such as Mexican fast food chain Guzman Y Gomez’s operations in Singapore and Sam Prince Hospitality Group in Australia as their customers.
• The team also serves customers in the United States, where the funding will be used to expand their footprint and on hiring.
• Co-founders Jascha Zittel and Elliott Gibb learned from their experience at Grab that the deskless workforce was most engaged on apps they already use, not new solutions. Keeping workers means meeting them where they are, which is why Mercu works with everyday messaging apps like WhatsApp instead of requiring workers to download yet another one.
• Jascha noted that engagement for messages sent through these platforms was much higher than in-app communications or email.
• Mercu can be used to create custom content, or employers can pick from templates for campaigns like engagement surveys. The platform segments employees into groups based on their role, tenure and location, and gives content creators analytics about read and completion rates, as well as industry benchmarks and recommendations.
• Despite accounting for more than 70% of the global workforce, less than 1% of VC funding gets allocated to startups serving deskless workers, they added.
• Read the full story on TechCrunch.