Russian startup Workle, which allows users to obtain training for various positions and then find remote jobs, has announced that they’ve raised $3.5 million (2.68 million euro) from Klever Internet Investments. In addition to this hefty sum, it’s announced that Klever has received the option to invest $1.5 million (1.15 million euro) more in quarter 2 of 2013. According to Workle, this is not the first significant amount of funding that they’ve raised. In the past, they’ve raised 2.18 million euro from unnamed private investors and have obtained 668,000 euro from the Skolkovo.
Their site is in Russian, so they’re certainly concentrating on the Russian market, but this service allows inexperienced or experienced workers to find remote work as sales managers in fields like insurance, banking, tourism, and entertainment. Interestingly, Workle specifically notes on their website that they’ve 215,811 (and counting) people to work through their service. The company says that their expectation is to hit the 500,000-person mark by the end of this year.
In commenting on the deal, the company’s CEO, Vladimir Gorbunov, says that they were not really in hurry to select an investor and wanted to make sure that it was a good fit before getting into anything.
For their part, we’re told that Klever is looking to go big in the remote-worker market and is hoping to recreate this Workle model in countries like India, Brazil, and several other countries.