Paris-based Malt has raised $28 million in venture capital as it seeks to expand its freelance platform into Germany and the Netherlands.
The company wants to make it easier for freelancers in countries where rigid economic and bureaucratic systems can discourage working independently. Malt provides a range of registration services, financial support such as insurance, and a marketplace to find gigs with one of its 15,000 corporate partners.
"We believe the gigantic B2B staffing market has only just started its transformation, but we've reached a tipping point where the best experts are now freelancers," said Malt CEO and co-founder Vincent Huguet in a statement. "Companies must adapt to this new reality in a context in which talent is hard to come by. Their capacity to innovate relies on it."
Huguet cofounded the company in 2014 with Hugo Lassiège. The freelance market has been slower to develop in France than in some countries, but it has belatedly begun growing in recent years. Malt notes that there were about 930,000 freelancers in France as of September 2018, up from 830,000 in early 2017.
Having established itself in France and launched in Spain, the company now has 100 employees in Paris, Lyon, and Madrid and hopes to grow to 200 this year. That includes plans for the new offices in Germany and the Netherlands.
Idinvest Partners led the round, which included money from previous investors ISAI and Serena. The company has now raised a total of $36 million.