Micro-jobbing platform Money for Jam (M4JAM) has been acquired by telco product distributor Informal Solution Providers for an undisclosed amount.
Earlier this year, there were fears the platform may have to shut down after it told 'jobbers' to empty their wallets. It emerged the company failed to reach profitability within the initial funding timeframe, and was looking for a buyer.
Co-founder and former CEO Andre Hugo will not stay on with the company.
He told ITWeb: "All I can say is that we have exited the business as part of the sale process and both Warren [Venter] and I are working on new opportunities in the tech space at the moment."
Hugo's LinkedIn page reads: "Starting the next roller-coaster ride" under current job description.
Informal Solution Providers says certain key figures from M4JAM have stayed on. The team will now be headed by Informal Solution Providers chairman Andy Payne and CEO Richard Dunn.
New and improved
Informal Solution Providers has said it will trade under the name M4JAM going forward.
"We were looking to add product to our existing proposition and required a channel to reach our market more dynamically," says Payne, in a statement to ITWeb.
"We were building our own platform when we came across M4JAM. We then realised their application was a near perfect match to our requirements, but with a lot of added appeal."
M4JAM breaks down large projects into small tasks so that geographically dispersed people with access to a mobile phone can complete a job quickly and independently in exchange for payment.
Payne says micro-jobbing is on the rise and large companies will start making use of it, if they have not already: "I expect the formal job market to embrace this trend as, for a lot of us, it will become a necessity just to cover essentials."
M4JAM aims to relaunch by the end of the year. Over the next few months, the platform will be enhanced to retain current jobbers as well as attract new jobbers after relaunch.
It initially ran on instant messaging service WeChat - one of its early partners and investors.
However, the company said it does not plan to extend this relationship but is working out details. It did note all jobbers who currently use WeChat to access M4JAM will still be able to do so for the moment.
Dunn and Payne want to make the platform accessible to as many people as possible, with a focus on the lower LSMs.
Dunn adds: "Through the M4JAM platform, we have the potential to be one of the biggest job creators in SA. Too much talent is lost (permanently), through the youth of this country not having any real commercial opportunity. By building this ecosystem, we plan to take this issue head-on."
M4JAM has an existing community of 130 000 jobbers, who are encouraged to finish up their non-paid jobs.
Start-up darling
The concept for M4JAM was conceived early in 2014, and was up and running in 115 days.
Shortly after M4JAM was launched, Hugo told ITWeb the start-up had exceeded growth targets by well over 300%.
"We put R854 000 into our jobbers' wallets within the first 21 days of business. This is real money going into the economy in increments of R15 to R25," he said at the time. "That's a lot of jobs, proving the demand for this type of platform is very real - where micro-jobbing is an effective mechanism to stimulate the economy."
However, in early 2015, the company ran into trouble after it was hit with an onslaught of complaints from jobbers around late - or no - payments for jobs done and a lack of follow-up or support. At the time, the six-month-old M4JAM said it was going through "teething issues" and the problems have since been resolved.
M4JAM was initially funded by WeChat.
"While WeChat Africa is willing to make select early stage equity investments into promising start-ups with potentially interesting use-cases for the WeChat Africa platform, WeChat Africa is not a venture capital fund that can provide multiple rounds of equity funding to portfolio companies," said Hugo in March when M4JAM was looking for a buyer.