TapChief raises funds from 500 Startups, AngelList, Kunal Shah, others
TapChief, an online platform that connects businesses to domain-specific professionals, has raised $650,000 from a clutch of investors including 500 Startups, AngelList India, Stanford Angels, SucSeed Venture Partners and angel investors like Cred founder Kunal Shah, former Flipkart executive Mekin Maheshwari and Slideshare founder Amit Ranjan.
Existing investors Paytm, NuVentures and Vokal founder Aprameya Radhakrishna also participated in the funding round. The Bengaluru-based startup plans to use the fresh funds to expand the team and accelerate its product development.
TapChief was started by Shashank Murali, Binay Krishna, and Arjun Krishna as an online career advice platform in 2016 and later pivoted to its current avatar in mid-2017. It claims to have more than 75,000 professionals on its platform, of which about 30% are full-time freelancers and it aims to add a million professionals to its platform by next year.
“An increasing number of highly-skilled professionals want the freedom to work on challenging problems and teams without a full-time job. We are de-risking the concept of remote independent work by creating thousands of solopreneurs who help businesses achieve key objectives every day,” said chief executive Shashank Murali.
TapChief enables clients to source and shortlist industry experts to consult or work on specific problems across various functions like strategy, technology, marketing, finance, sales, and operations, depending on their budget and timelines.
These gigs could range anywhere from 60 minutes to six months, with technology being the biggest category for the company followed by content, brand strategy, and emerging technologies. Among its clientele include Fortune 500 companies like Unilever, Deloitte and Indian Internet firms like Paytm, redBus, UpGrad, and Dunzo.
“Businesses need a trusted way to engage with high-quality talent and TapChief’s focus on curating and managing the entire lifecycle through technology and a community of professionals is a winning proposition to all stakeholders in a rapidly changing business environment,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder and CEO of Paytm.
