London’s Breakroom breaks it down, rakes in $7 million in seed funding

Crowdsourced data platform for hourly and shift workers, Breakroom, has secured $7 million in a seed funding round. Through a peer review system, the startup aims to improve the life of workers by avoiding the bottom of the barrel and aiming for only the cream of the crop. Prior to this round, Breakroom raised £320,000 in pre-seed funding in 2019 via a number of undisclosed angel investors.

Where the office worker can turn to perennial favourites Glassdoor, Indeed, et al., Breakroom co-founders Anna Maybank, James Weiner, and Tom Taylor have effectively brought the same service to the hourly and shift working labour market. A seemingly simple solution to a problem that’s gone under-addressed for quite some time; just look at the UK’s recent lorry driver shortage, and a service like Breakroom becomes blatantly apparent and in dire need.

“Most people don’t work from offices: they’re on the frontline, working shifts and many of them are paid by the hour. The pandemic has shown that there are too many jobs that are undervalued and need to improve," comments Maybank. "The recent labour shortages in sectors like logistics and hospitality show that now is a great time to make sure that things are different in the future. Breakroom will help workers find the best job for them and help employers compete on the quality of the jobs they offer.”

As noted above, the startup uses crowdsourced data from some 160,000 real-life, actual boots on the ground workers at firms including the NHS, Tesco, and Amazon. In total, Breakroom houses profiles on over 1,400 UK employers, with employees’ inputs ranging from sick-leave policies, to safety at work, to shift pattern flexibility.

"This round is all about gathering more ratings of employers from hourly workers to comprehensively cover the UK market and we're growing our team to help us do that," adds Maybank.

Offering up a slice of what’s-available-inside pie, the startup has baked up some interesting stats: hospitality-related roles have avoid written all over them, whereas rail transport workers receive a Michelin star.

Likewise, Breakroom also breaks down employers within a specific industry; for supermarket workers, Iceland is a no-go, while Aldi pays for breaks and are more likely to provide good notice of shift work.

Breakroom’s $7 million seed round was led by PROfounders and Revent, with participation from Northzone and Nomad Capital. Angel investors include Jeremy Yap, Peakon CEO, Phil Chambers, and co-founder of Simply Business and CEO at Sanctus, Chris Slater. Breakroom is also backed by the London-based think-tank that focuses on improving living standards for low-and-middle-income workers in the UK, Resolution Foundation.