staffing-marketplace
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The Empty Shift Is Qwick's Whole Business - and It Fills One in 30 Minutes
A Charleston startup called Gigpro merged with its better-funded Phoenix rival, took the rival's name, and built a marketplace where a short-staffed restaurant can post a shift and have a vetted bartender walking in before service.
Yong Kim
Yong Kim is the co-founder and CEO of Wonolo, an on-demand staffing marketplace that connects businesses with more than one million frontline workers across the United States. Born in Seoul, he moved alone to a New Hampshire boarding school at 15, graduated as valedictorian, and went on to the University of Chicago and Harvard before a career in tech investment banking at Deutsche Bank. A stint at a Coca-Cola innovation accelerator exposed the broken state of hourly staffing and led him to launch Wonolo in 2014. The company has raised roughly $200 million, including a Sequoia-led round, and Kim has become a prominent voice for treating gig and hourly workers with dignity, flexibility, and fair pay.
Traba
Traba is a technology-driven marketplace that matches light industrial businesses - warehouses, distribution centers, manufacturers and event venues - with vetted temporary workers who pick up shifts through a mobile app. Founded in 2021 by Mike Shebat and Akshay Buddiga, the company uses AI, geolocation and computer vision to fill shifts fast and cut the no-shows that plague traditional staffing agencies, reporting a 99% fill rate against a roughly 46% industry average. Backed by Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures and General Catalyst, Traba has raised about $45.6M and positions itself as infrastructure for the industrial supply chain, with staffing as the starting point.