INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
WorkClout, a graduate of the Y Combinator Winter 2019 cohort, announced today that it has shifted its focus from manufacturing automation to
manufacturing performance support and has raised a $2.3 million seed round.The funding was led by Spider Capital with participation from Y
Combinator, Liquid 2, Soma Capital, Pioneer Fund, Mehta Ventures and several individual investors.When the company launched last year, it
was looking at helping customers drive operational efficiency in their processes, but WorkClout founder and CEO Arjun Patel says they were
seeing that there was a ceiling in terms of how much efficiency they could squeeze out of work processes using software.At that point, Patel
decided to take a step back and do some research to figure out how WorkClout could best help manufacturing customers with its
After surveying 124 manufacturers, he says that he realized that these companies really needed help training front-line workers, an area he
to face in terms of how to engage them better or how to empower them better, because ultimately they realize people, even if there is
built a new tool to help customers train employees for complex front-line tasks
The workers might have a phone or tablet, which shows them how to complete each task, and gives them feedback as they move through a set of
It also enables these workers to communicate with one another and with management about issues they are seeing on the line
employees to capture and share critical information in real time on the factory floor, where the goal is to actually create standardized
multimedia and training content for machines, processes and stations, allowing new and existing employees to get better insight into their
recognizes that this is a difficult time to pivot, but says he believes it puts the company in a better position to succeed in the long term
He has cut the team from nine to five employees in an effort to run lean for the short term.He hopes to begin hiring again in the fourth
quarter this year or, at the latest, by Q1 next year
He plans to use that time to build out the product and prepare for a big go-to market push whenever the economy begins to rebound.He sees
wait out the current economic downturn.
