BenchOn, a B2B talent mobility platform that solves the problem of employee underutilisation by matching a business’s idle staff to short-term contracts, has raised $650,000 in seed capital as it looks to scale nationally to meet market demand.
BenchOn was founded in March 2016 by Tim Walmsley while he was working as an executive in the defence industry and recognised the issue of employee underutilisation for both employees and employers. In the past eighteen months it has processed over $50million worth of contracts across a variety of industries including defence, IT, construction, mining, engineering, cyber security and logistics.
The problem of employee underutilisation is costing the Australian economy $305 billion each year in lost productivity. Employees on the ‘bench’ is a critical issue for small to medium businesses as it cripples their cash flow and forces them to lose valuable employees.
At the same time, large organisations are frustrated that they do not have a ‘bench’ of high quality staff ready to respond to short notice tasks from their clients. BenchOn efficiently matches these two parties and allows them to manage the peaks and troughs of their business cycle with either contracts for their idle employees or high quality staff to support during surges.
Why has BenchOn attracted this funding?
Walmsley is a successful alumni of BlueChilli, Australia’s largest tech startup accelerator. Walmsley originally tried to launch the business on his own before signing up to the BlueChilli accelerator program and credits the BlueChilli program with getting the startup launched as a viable product that he could take to market.
“Originally I tried to launch BenchOn with the support of an external IT consultant but I realised that it was going to be a very expensive process and one I was not sure I could do on my own as a non-tech founder,” Walmsley said.
“Working with BlueChilli in their accelerator program gave me access to a range of experts who understood my vision and were invested in making sure we achieved the best possible outcome. With their help I had a minimum viable product ready to launch in six months, something which I could not have achieved on my own.”
Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin, CEO of BlueChilli said, “BlueChilli exists to empower early-stage startup founders to break down the barriers to entrepreneurship and achieve their vision of building impactful, investible tech startups that solve the world’s greatest challenges.
“Tim is an exceptional entrepreneur who has demonstrated strong experience backed by his military background. I have high hopes for how well BenchOn will do in the market.”
This latest round of funding will support national expansion to match demand and ensure that BenchOn reaches the businesses that need it most.
“We are operating across 10 industries now so we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we now have the resources to take that next big step,” said Walmsley.
