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Gurgaon, 21 Jan 2026 – Arthum, India’s first integrated operating system for contract workforce management, has raised ₹10 crore in seed investment led by Caret^Capital, a $50 million thematic venture capital fund. The round also saw participation from Keynote Financial Services Limited and JS Global.
Founded in 2023 by Darpan Sharma (Co-founder & CEO) and Vishal Mishra (Co-founder & CTO), Arthum emerged in the aftermath of the post-Covid labour migration crisis with a mission to formalize and digitize the country’s vast contract-based workforce. Designed as a unified operating system, Arthum connects anchors, contractors, and workers on a single digital infrastructure, enabling transparent workforce management, standardized compliance, and accurate payouts. The platform integrates core ERP functionalities such as geo-tagged attendance, payroll, digital payments, contracts, and statutory compliance to create a single source of truth for all stakeholders. Additionally, it automates the key operations for over 3 lakh labour contractors.
Complementing this is Arthum’s integrated Neo-banking platform, which leverages the verified data to extend financial access to India’s 100 million blue-collar workers, offering them banking, insurance, loans, and investment opportunities—all within the same ecosystem. This formalized data layer transforms informal workforces into digitally recognized, creditworthy participants in the financial system.
“Arthum is an operating system that connects every stakeholder in the contract labour ecosystem,” said Darpan Sharma, Co-founder & CEO, Arthum. “This investment will help us strengthen our technology stack, expand geographically, and unlock deeper financial inclusion through data-led credit and banking innovation. Having onboarded over 1,500 labour contractors and 6 lakh+ workers across Delhi NCR, we are now expanding to Dehradun, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad and other industrial clusters.”
“By investing in Arthum, we aim to accelerate the formalization of India’s 120 million+ blue-collar workers and leverage the tech stack of Arthum to drive inclusion of 300k+ labour contractors into the formal economy”, said Pankaj Bansal, Caret^Capital. “Arthum’s
integrated operating system—combining workflow automation with financial enablement—has the potential to redefine how contractors and workers engage with enterprises and financial institutions alike. This is aligned to Caret Capital’s objective to support 10M Jobs.”
Arthum has partnered with several leading banks, including Yes Bank, ICICI Bank, and IDFC, along with 15+ NBFCs such as Ugro Capital, Bajaj, Aditya Birla, Godrej, BlackSoil, and Protium, to co-create affordable financial products tailored for the blue-collar workforce.
Arthum’s first-mover and full-stack approach sets it apart in the market from the traditional non-tech and non-integrated players. By combining workforce management, compliance, and financial inclusion within an integrated ecosystem, Arthum eliminates information gaps, reduces payment errors, and builds digital identities for millions of workers—driving transparency, scalability, and trust across the value chain.
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About Arthum
Founded in 2023, Arthum is India’s first integrated operating system for contract workforce management. The platform unifies anchors, contractors, and workers on a single digital infrastructure—enabling transparent operations, standardized compliance, and accurate payouts. Through its Neo-banking partnerships, Arthum leverages verified workforce data to provide banking, insurance, credit, and investment access to millions of blue-collar workers and contractors. By formalizing the informal, Arthum is building a connected, data-driven ecosystem that powers the next wave of financial inclusion and workforce digitization in India’s blue-collar ecosystem.
About Caret^Capital
Caret^Capital is a $50Mn sustainability-focused thematic venture capital fund, investing in category-building startups across three sectors—Jobs, Smart Mobility and Distribution & Supply Chain, that have the strongest tailwinds and the highest multiplicative effect that would potentially represent USD ~1.2 trillion by 2030 in India’s growth story. Caret^Capital is on a mission to create 10 million jobs and reduce 10 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.
