Northern Quarter-based Twine handpicks freelancers for jobs aimed at providing companies with high quality and consistent talent and said the number of people using the platform has increased by 45% during the coronavirus pandemic due to the need for more flexible workers and reliable work.
Twine said it will use the investment from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, city-based GC Angels and private angel investors from across the north to build on growth by expanding its development, sales and marketing teams.
Founded by the University of Manchester graduate Stuart Logan, Twine has a network of over 350,000, while GC Angels support SMEs in raising early-stage, scale-up and growth capital ranging from £25k to £2m.
Jess Jackson, investment director at GC Angels, said: “GC Angels is delighted to announce this deal, investing alongside GMCA and our network of private angels, completing at a time when early-stage deals are suffering in the ecosystem.
"We were established to fill the early-stage equity gap across the north, so we are pleased to continue to support Greater Manchester’s innovative startups.
“Twine has incredible potential, and we are looking forward to watching it grow as more businesses turn to quality freelancers.
"We are particularly pleased that the investment comes during the Creative Scale-Up Programme, delivered by our sister company GC Business Growth Hub, which we support by encouraging investment into creative businesses like Twine.”
Mr Logan said: "We founded Twine with a vision that, by mid-2030, 30% of jobs would be automatable due to AI and machine learning. As a result, we also predicted that companies would shift more of their budgets to less automatable roles in research, creativity, strategy, development and marketing.
"To fill this skills gap, more of the workforce would freelance because it enables flexibility and a wider talent pool that is not geographically constrained.
“When the coronavirus pandemic accelerated these trends, we needed to raise money to capitalise on the opportunity and deliver our vision of an authentic network of quality freelancers.
"We approached GC Angels and were quickly introduced to a number of investors that have since put money into the business. We’ve built a proven revenue model in recent years, and we look forward to growing the platform together.”
Read original article here: https://www.business-live.co.uk/technology/manchester-tech-firm-twine-expand-18748955