Atlanta startup Wripple is bringing the gig economy into white-collar work.
Founded by executives at digital media company Razorfish, Wripple is a marketplace that provides companies with on-demand, interdisciplinary teams for different projects.
Wripple updates the process for contracting teams that co-founder Shannon Denton said is usually inefficient, costly and time-consuming. With Wripple, companies can look at different teams of independent professionals on one platform and get started much faster than if they had to put out request for proposals and vet different agencies, Denton said.
“After we left Razorfish, we took our knowledge and created a platform that really offers clients a better, faster, cheaper way to get top talent and teams,” said Denton, whose fellow co-founders are Bonny Block and Ray Samuels.
Wripple is about halfway through a $750,000 raise, Denton said, which is expected to close in March. Silicon Road VC, which has its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, is the lead investor in the raise. Silicon Road invests in early-stage startups that have a mission to innovate in the commerce industry.
Denton said the platform has about 420 contractors looking for work and about 30 clients looking for employees on the site. The startup grew about 30% last year, Denton said.
Wripple benefited from the pandemic making people more comfortable with remote work, Denton said. Instead of feeling like a team had to come from the same agency, companies could hire a team based exclusively on talent instead of location or affiliation.
"People are now really looking for alternative ways to work and new ways to get talent,” Denton said.
Freelancers and contractors can sign up by themselves or with a team on Wripple, noting what jobs they can do, such as product and web development or marketing. The platform vets the members, and then a company can go onto Wripple and hire the best people they find for the job.
Denton said he sees the platform as an opportunity for independent professionals to get more opportunities while helping companies lower their contracting costs.
