Brazil-based upstart is using seed round of nearly $5M to fund its U.S. expansion
RIO DE JANEIRO and SAN FRANCISCO, May 14, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- GigU, the popular earnings optimization and safety platform for gig-economy workers in Brazil officially announced today its expansion to the United States market with the launch of its mobile app designed to help ride-share and food-delivery drivers maximize profits and enhance safety. The GigU app currently supports drivers working with major platforms including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.
To help fund its U.S. launch, GigU has already raised a total of nearly USD$5 million in seed funding, building on a previous Seed 1 round of $1.2 million announced in March 2024, being used for market expansion from Brazil to the U.S., including operations and marketing to promote the company and its new app. GigU is already a profitable enterprise.
After remarkable success in Brazil, where it has been downloaded nearly 600,000 times and maintains over 181,000 active users and 70,000+ paying subscribers, GigU is bringing its proven technology to the U.S. market where drivers face declining earnings and increasing safety concerns.
"Our mission is to create a more equitable gig economy by providing workers with the tools, information, and community they need to maximize their earnings potential and improve their quality of life," said Luiz Gustavo Neves, CEO and co-founder of GigU. "The U.S. expansion represents a critical step in our vision to become the essential first app that every gig worker uses – the central hub that connects workers to opportunities, resources, and each other in a future where gig workers are empowered, not exploited."
The GigU app's flagship feature - its proprietary "Cherry Picker" - uses intelligent algorithms to help drivers increase their daily profits by up to 30% on average (as proven in Brazil and its U.S. beta tests) by showing drivers their potential earnings for each offer before accepting rides through an intuitive color-coded system: green for profitable rides, yellow for acceptable options, and red for trips to avoid. The simple color coding minimizes driver distraction while on the road.
"We built GigU by working directly with drivers, eating with them, listening to them, and understanding their daily challenges since 2017," said Pedro Inada, co-founder of GigU. "Our 'Cherry Picker' feature helps drivers earn more while increasing their safety on the road by eliminating complex calculations while driving. Meanwhile, our 'Secret Camera' feature transforms smartphones into networked security camera tools that can be connected to Google Cloud to serve as evidence during disputes or safety incidents, providing drivers with much-needed security and peace of mind."
The U.S. launch comes at a critical time for gig workers. According to Gridwise Analytics' Annual Gig Mobility Report (2024), Uber drivers saw hourly earnings decline by 4% to $23.33 per hour and Lyft drivers earnings saw a steeper 6% drop to $23.23/hour. Food-delivery drivers fared poorly, with Uber Eats drivers' hourly pay falling 5% to $14.96 and DoorDash drivers' 3% decline to $12.23 per hour.
Gridwise reported a much steeper decline for Uber drivers for 2022-2023, so 2024's modest earnings decline was on top of an already low base. While Gridwise used different metrics in its 2024 and 2025 reports, Uber drivers' earnings have declined over 20% from 2022-2024, per Gridwise.
In conjunction with driver earnings declining, Solo's Market Pulse research from November 2024, highlights how food delivery services such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub have experienced a surge in popularity, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. While this has led to a significant increase in people participating in the gig economy, with many drivers taking on food delivery as a flexible, full-time option, their earnings results vary significantly across geographic regions.
During the same timeframe, safety concerns are mounting, with a study by the UCL Centre for Transport Studies revealing that 42% of gig workers have damaged their vehicles in collisions at work, 47% break speed limits to meet time pressures, and 16% report struggling to stay awake at the wheel.
Romero Rodrigues, managing partner at Redpoint eventures and an early investor in GigU, emphasized the company's potential to help transform the gig economy landscape:
"Having built and scaled technology companies in both Latin America and globally, I immediately recognized that GigU's approach is revolutionary. Their ability to deeply understand their gig customers and pivot to solving their biggest challenges speaks to the strength of their vision and execution, said Rodrigues. "Our investment has enabled GigU to bring their proven solutions to the massive U.S. market, where millions of gig workers are struggling with declining earnings. They're not just building another app; they're creating a movement that empowers gig workers who have been treated as disposable parts in an algorithm-driven business."
GigU's rapid growth in Brazil hasn't gone unnoticed by major platforms. The company's effectiveness led to legal challenges from Uber, which GigU has countered with its own complaint to CADE, Brazil's antitrust authority, equivalent to the FTC in the U.S., has launched an investigation into Uber's business practices in Brazil, including an in-depth audit of the company's operations over the last four years to uncover potentially exploitative practices designed to minimize driver earnings.
Per ongoing research led by Len Sherman, an Executive in Residence and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School: While a number of states have reached agreements with the two leading U.S. ride-share companies to help guarantee minimum driver pay rates and enhanced benefits, these agreements have done little to "rein in the key drivers of Uber's dominant market share" resulting in Uber being able to "adopt a growing array of anti-competitive practices" that warrant FTC review.
The GigU app is available for download starting today on Android mobile devices via Google Play in the U.S. with an option for gig workers to trial the app's full functionality via a free 30-day trial.
Editor's note: To view/download assets from the GigU digital press kit, visit: https://app.air.inc/a/b98V56oYR
About GigU:
GigU empowers gig-economy workers to take control of their earnings, safety, and financial future through innovative technology that levels the playing field with big tech platforms. Born from face-to-face interactions with drivers as StopClub in Brazil, GigU transforms smartphones into intelligent earnings optimization tools, helping ride-share and delivery drivers increase their daily profit by 25-30% using the GigU app's Cherry Picker feature, while providing them with more peace of mind on the road with its Secret Camera feature. For more information, visit www.gigu.app
U.S. Media Contact:
Chris Knight
U.S. Editorial and PR Director for GigU
Based in San Francisco, Calif.
(415) 786-9226 (on WhatsApp)
Media Contact
Chris Knight, Divino Group, 1 4157869226, [email protected] www.divinogroup.net
SOURCE GigU
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