Workle raises $3.5 million to flesh out its remote working platform

Editor‘s note: This article originally appeared on East-West Digital News, a leading English-language resource on Russian digital industries and related venture activity.

Moscow-based startup Workle, whose platform enables residents of Russia’s regions to work on a remote basis for leading companies, has announced that it has raised $3.5 million in a second investment round from Klever Internet Investment.

The fund has also received the option to complete another $1.5 million investment tranche later this year. The valuation of the company has not been disclosed.

Klever Internet Investment is a technology-focused branch of Klever Asset Management, a large Russian private investor with total assets under management valued in excess of $1 billion.

With this new funding, Workle plans to launch new job opportunities in sales, along with new jobs serving modern telephony, such as call-center specialists, remote secretaries, telemarketing specialists, etc.

Longer term, Workle will offer an online version of any employment that does not require an employee to be physically present at a particular work site.

Workle plans to serve up to 500,000 people before the end of this year, by extending its offer to residents of the neighboring countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Brazil and India are among other countries targeted for international development in a second phase.

Back in 2011, Workle secured a first round of funding, securing $3 million from Vyacheslav Potanin, Workle‘s PR manager Svetlana Gosteva told East-West Digital news. A businessman from Perm, Potanin made this investment via his fund Kama Corporation.

Last year, Workle received a 27.5 million ruble grant (approx. $917,000) from Skolkovo, the state-sponsored innovation hub outside Moscow.