Loop

Today we are witnessing an unprecedented level of human mobility all around the globe. This mobility has political, socio-economical, developmental, humanitarian and rights ramifications, across all borders. Migrants are obliged to take great risks, embarking on dangerous journeys; facing racism and xenophobia among other threats.

Only in 2020, the number of international migrants raised to 281 million around the world. It is believed that this number will keep growing in the future.

Women represent almost 50% of the migrants. The main cause being gender inequality, social exclusion and gender violence against women in Africa, Asia and Latin America that have feminized an important portion of today’s migration.

Migrant women are in an extreme vulnerable position because they face twice as much discrimination just for being women and as migrants. They are at greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment, gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and human trafficking; the fact is that, globally, 71% of human trafficking victims are women.

As a part of this general context, Latin America is also experiencing significant changes in migration patterns. The crisis in Venezuela has originated the second largest people displacement in the world after Syria. At the same time, there is a large and growing population of Haitians that have migrated to South America (Chile), and large numbers are moving from the Northern Triangle (Central America) to Mexico and the United States, as well as from Nicaragua to Costa Rica. The number of migrants in the region has increased in 200% compared to 2005, reaching 15 million people by 2022. This scenario presents challenges for all the countries in the region, the most unequal in the world.

In 2018, when the Venezuelan crisis hit its pick, hundreds of Venezuelan migrant women knocked on our door looking for job opportunities as domestic workers. Back then, unfortunately, we were able to support only ten of them –due to xenophobia, because customers didn’t want to receive them in their homes. To address the increasing need of decent job opportunities for migrant women, Loop was created shortly after. 

Loop is a startup developed by Nanas & Amas, the most recognized employment agency for domestic workers in Peru. 

Loop is a mobile app to hire per-hour cleaning services for homes in an easy, safe and quick way, with solidarity.

The services are provided by migrant women –Loop Partners – who, after a selection process, receive free trainings in professional cleaning, biosafety and environmental care. They are also given welcome packs: jumpers, t-shirts, gloves, facemasks, bags, protective glasses, shoes and hair nets.

Loop Partners receive weekly incomes at their bank accounts, achieving economic independence, building a financial reputation, and, most importantly, becoming providers for their families back home, since 40% send remittances to them. Additionally, they choose when to work so they can are able to take care of their children, as 58% are mothers of children under 12. They participate in coaching sessions – being 36% entrepreneurs and 12% students - and they receive loans to buy from bus tickets to cell phones. Furthermore, they become part of an amazing community of women that support each other.

Loop raises awareness on the migrant situation. When hiring a Loop Partner, customers receive information of their journey – that was previously prepared by them -, creating bridges of empathy and respect between migrants and locals.

Loop has been designed and tested to be easy scalable and to allow an exponential growth: starting operations in a new city takes only three months, due to its standardized procedures, flexible mobile app, and team experience - based on 13 years evaluating, training and empowering thousands of domestic workers.

Since its launching in January, 2021, more than 11,500 services have been provided, receiving a 4.8 out of 5 stars average rate by customers. Today Loop operates in two cities: Lima and Trujillo.

Batmaid in Europe and Hogaru and Zolvers in LATAM are our main competitors. Neither of their apps allow to virtually hire a cleaning service on the spot. Using Loop, customers can ask for a cleaning service anytime - even on the same day- without intermediaries.

Loop Partners receive 75% of the services they provide in net income; 40% more per hour than the women working at Hadas, our main Peruvian competitor, and 280% above Peruvian Minimum Wage. 

We are looking for funds to pilot Loop in a new country: Chile; aiming: to empower 10% of 332,500 migrant women - consisting of 43% Venezuelans, 27% Peruvians, 17% Haitians, and 14% Colombians-; and to develop our Manual for International Expansion, which would allow us to successfully replicate Loop throughout Latin America.

Loop's target population are migrant women, 18-years-old and older, who live in poverty conditions.

Loop is impacting the lives of Venezuelan migrant women in Peru - its direct beneficiaries – in the following matters:

1) Financial inclusion & access to credit: as Loop is a completely digitalized service, every partner has a bank account to receive their incomes. Normally, is quite difficult for migrant people to open bank accounts, so when needed Loop gives support in this matter. Along with active banks account and regular incomes, Loop Partners become credit-worthy by their bank in just a few months. 

2) Networks development and social empowerment and cohesion: Loop Partners will take part in the Loop’s Community, that involves group meetings, developing positive, empowering, and mutually supportive relationships with each other.

3) Improved leadership skills and experience: all Loop Partners receive mandatory training and capacity building as part of the registration process. Trainings also encourage women to be environmental influencers and leaders.

Having greater financial independence and greater peers support has shown to be key on helping women to leave domestic situations. Additionally generating income for their families, could result in expectations shift around gender roles in their household. Furthermore:

4) Increased choice and flexible work schedules: ability to workdays and times of their choosing. This will enable them to accommodate other scheduling needs, such as childcare and household duties, education, or bureaucratic duties – very heavy in the migrant population.  

5) Safety and security: Loop Partners will be able to afford safer homes, where they and their families may be less exposed to insecurity and risk of violence. 

We are a multi-disciplinary team conformed by six professional women with more than 14 years of experience working in the domestic workers' sector; recruiting, evaluating, training, and empowering thousands of domestic workers. 

We are a team of women passionate to empower vulnerable women to thrive.

Before Loop, we have all worked at Nanas & Amas, the most recognized employment agency for domestic workers in Peru. Since its foundation in 2009, it has been promoting the respect of domestic workers’ rights; and connecting domestic workers with families through fair working relationships.

In 2016, during a meeting with authorities at the Ministry of Labor in Peru, Nanas & Amas’ founder proposed an incentive to increase domestic workers’ formalization by letting employers reduce their taxes with their payment of domestic workers’ social security. It was finally implemented by the Peruvian Government in 2016 (z). In 2018, Nanas & Amas’ NGO prepared and presented to Peruvian Congress a law project to modify the former Peruvian Domestic Workers’ Law according to ILO C189 recommendations; which was finally modified in 2020 (aa).

Furthermore, Nanas & Amas created the ‘Student Domestic Worker’ project, to defend the right of domestic workers’ to study. A proposal that won the Expo Live Grant (UAE, 2019) and was exhibited in the ‘Mobility Pavilion’ of the Expo Dubai, on the UN Global Goals wall (UAE, 2022) (bb). Additionally, Nanas & Amas has been mentioned in in the Meaningful Business MB100 List (UK, 2019); won the BetterTogether Challenge (USA, 2020); and the ‘Bold Moves Grant’ (USA, 2022) (cc). In 2020, Nanas & Amas created Loop, the only app of its kind in Peru.

Loop has also achieved important recognitions: Finalist of ‘Desafio Kunan’, a social businesses contest (Peru, 2021 and 2022); guest at ‘The Good Place’ Pavilion in the Expo Dubai (UAE, 2022); winner of 'ProInnovate' (Peru, 2021); winner of ‘Start Path Empodera’, a LATAM startup accelerator challenge organized by Mastercard and USAID (USA, 2022); and winner of The Gender Mainstream Scaling Fund (Switzerland, 2023). 

Yesterday, Loop won the TECLA 6 challenge, the most recognized social and environmental entrepreneurial contest in Chile. This is an iniciative of the bank 'Caja Los Andes', Endeavor and SociaLab, which will support Loop's softlanding in Santiago de Chile this year, with a grant, an acceleration program and the participation of their networks.

We have empowered 200 Venezuelan migrant women to date - our Loop Partners -, by connecting them with permanent decent work opportunities.

In average they have 6 indirect beneficiaries - people from their families here and in their country. They are 1200 people.

Loop Partners have provided 12 thousand cleaning services, for 2,700 families in two cities of Peru.

Considering 4 people per customer family in average, they are 8,100 people.

Loop has directly served 2,500 people, and indirectly served 9,300 people.

In total, Loop has served 11,800 people, to date.

Loop has been designed to achive an exponential growth, to empower the biggest possible number of migrant women. 

We need advise to design a great scaling strategy to launch it abroad (technology, marketing, building our team, landing, investments), to build Loop as an international corporation, with an amazing team and a proper board; and funds to make it possible.

Our solution is innovative in many ways.

There is no other app to hire cleaning services in Peru, nor in most Latin American countries.

Our business model is innovative, too. It has been conceived to achieve exponential growth: Loop receives 25% of the price of each cleaning service and 75% is received by the Loop Partner who offers it. 

Loop Partners are formal providers, not employees. That allows Loop to have better scaling opportunities than business models that consider professional cleaners as employees, which makes them heavier for growth.

Loop Partners are empowered women, economically independent, who weekly receive very good incomes into their bank accounts, and are providers for themselves and for their families, even for their families abroad (63% send remittances home).

They are owners of their time, choose which services to provide, which makes it easier that the ones who are mothers of chilndren under 12-years-old - 45% of Loop Partners-, and single mothers - 20% of Loop Partners- could work; and allows that Loop also has entrepreneurs and students working as Loop Partners. 

Every Loop Partner has an accident protective insurance, and are part of an amazing community of women that supports each other.

On the customer side, they could easily hire a professional cleanning service (in less than 30 seconds), even for the same day; they receive the information of the Loop Partner who is going to provide the service; and also receive her story: what she used to do in her country, what she left behind, her dreams and her profesional background; to reconnect locals and migrants through new bridges built on empathy and respect.

Our goal is to empower 3,500 migrant women per country where we arrive, by attending 3% of our Market Share in each country, which is going to take us 3 years since our landing.

For the next year, our projection is to empower 1,600 migrant women: 1,500 in Peru, and 100 in Chile.

By 2028, we are going to be operating in 10 Latin American countries -oppening 2 new countries per year-, empowering 25 thousand migrant women.

Impact Goals by 2028:

• 25,000 Loop Partners are professional cleaners, actively participating at housekeeping and recycling trainings, being valued, and respected by their customers – social inclusion.
• Loop Partners receiving 250% more income per hour than Min Wage - in Peru they are receiving 280% above Min Wage-, working an average of 100 hours per month – this is half the time a full-time work requires.
• 100% of Loop partners formalized, working with a formal taxpayer identification registration.
• 100% of Loop Partners having their own bank accounts – financial inclusion.
• 100% of Loop Partners having an accident insurance policy- health.

• Between 30 to 40% of Loop Partners being entrepreneurs who finance their businesses with their Loop earnings, actively participating at Loop’s Entrepreneurial Workshops.
• Increasing sense of Loop Partner’s wellbeing due to having a flexible schedule – designed by themselves- which allow them to take care of their kids.
• Between 10% to 20% of Loop Partners studying a career at a university or a technical institute.
• Loop Partners becoming key providers for themselves, while also sending remittances to other family members in their countries.
• Increasing mental health wellness of Loop Partners due to coaching sessions and psychologists’ support and even free therapy sessions when needed.

Additionally,

• 10 diverse professionals per country, including migrant women, will have a full-time job at Loop team in each country we arrive.
• 50,000 cleaning services will be offered per country each month - this number has been achieved by a recognized Colombian cleaning business, Hogaru.
• Loop’s gross margin would be 20%
• Loop would be completely auto sustainable.

Loop has done mayor research on the migration topic and context in Latin America with a special focus in Peru and Chile. Its team has permanent dialogue with organizations that works with migrant people such as OIM, WOCCU, IFRC, with whom Loop receives assessment and exchange initiatives. Furthermore, it keeps track of all the data – reports, round tables, congresses – lead by ACNUR, World Bank and ILO, referred to migrant women. In addition, Loop’s team is permanently building skills regarding labor laws and regulations, gender equality and women empowerment.

Loop’s methodology strategy is qualitative and quantitative, based on indicators obtained:

• During the recruitment and selection process through surveys and interviews - baseline
• From Loop’s database, through its software reports – weekly measured
• From surveys with open ended and closed questions, and individual follow-up interviews with LP monthly conducted by Loop’s psychologist – monthly measured

Loop’s key indicators are the following:

FINANCIAL:

#Migrant women (MW) owners of active bank accounts

#LP sending remittances

Average LP’s monthly income

Revenues

OPERATIONS:

#Active LPs

#Services provided

#New users

#New customers

#Frequent customers

Average services’ rates and

Average customers’ rate (both are 4.8 of 5 stars)

SOCIAL:

#MW working as LP

#MW trained in professional cleaners

#MW participating in coaching sessions

#MW participating in the Community meetings

Average LP’s working hours per month

#LP who are single parent

#LP mothers of children under 12

#LP head of family

#LP entrepreneurs

#LP students

#LP who improve their quality of life since working with Loop

The same surveys will be conducted to a randomized group of MW, who were candidates and did not make it to get into Loop. They are going to be interviewed each semester, by a Loop’s team member. The results obtained will be compared with the ones obtained by active LP. These MW are going to receive workshops on how to prepare a resume and to use on-line platforms to apply for a job.

Loop will be considered a successful initiative, as long as:

• LP receive an average monthly income above Minimum Wage
• LP work at most 200 hours per month
• Loop services’ average rate is above 4.5 stars
• 100% or more of LP own a bank account
• At least 30% of LP actively participate in coaching sessions
• # LP has a growing rate of 10% each month

The impact assessment will be made by Loop first, in Chile, before and during its implementation; and then, in each new country we arrive.

The results obtained will be analyzed through numerical and graphical analysis from a member of our actual team; and the economic analysis will be conducted by a specialist who will be hired to obtained Loop’s cost benefit and cost effectives – considering the number of jobs created for MW. This professional will also have the responsibility to prepare Loop’s Annual Impact Report.

Loop’s Theory of Change

The problem: Migrants in general face a lot of risks. Migrant women, who represent almost 50% of the migrants are in an extreme vulnerable position because they face twice as much discrimination. They are at greater risk of experiencing sexual harassment, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and face difficulties to access to fare work opportunities – that implies in many cases not having financial inclusion and dependency on a male provider. Not having a support network is an additional problem for them to participate from the working market, as many of them have children to take care of.

While Loop is an important revenue stream for migrant women, its impact is bigger: it improves many dimensions of Loop partners life. As women are principally responsible of care tasks in LATAM - when there are children or elderly people in their families -, and represent the main head of one-parent families; the impacts on them becomes magnified towards their family ecosystems.  

Loop empowers migrant women in three fronts:

ECONOMICAL:

• Labour market participation – fair conditions, formality, incomes above mínimum wage, insurance
• Financial inclusion – banking, acces to credit cards, good financial reputation
• Formality – documents, permission to work
• Providers/main providers for their families
• Remittances sent to support their families home
• Soft loans available at Loop for smart phones acquisition/renewal

SOCIAL:

• Battling xenophobia and creating new connections between local customers and Loop partners (based on empathy and respect)
• Strong sense of belonging to a women community

PERSONAL/INDIVIDUAL LEVEL:

• Increase of self-stem
• Increase of emotional stability
• Life skills strengthening (through coaching sessions on topics such as:  personal financial management, personal brand management, meditation, assertive communication, etc.).
• LP studying at school/university
• LP becoming entrepreneurs

Loop is measuring its impact indicators in Peru since 2021. This project will be an opportunity to test our Theory of Change in a new country, to this effect, Loop will continue its measuring and evaluation process before and during its implementation in Chile. We are confident that the great impact Loop is obtaining in Peru will be replicated there, too.

Key assumptions:

• Migrant women are willing to be a part of Loop.
• Migrant women referrals come from Loop Partners.
• Costumers bias towards migrants tend to decrease the more they interact with Loop partners.
• Customers appreciate Loop Partners’ cleaning services and recommend it.
• The number of services increases continuously. The mobile app operates in a stable and continuous basis.

Loop is a solution that works using our two mobile apps - one for customers and other one for Loop Partners - which are available in Google Play and AppStore. 

Loop 's customer app allow people to hire cleaning services for their homes anytime. They could choose which rooms they want to clean, and depending on it, the app calculates the time required and the price of the service. They could also ask for extra services. It allows customers to pay using credit and debit cards. We are working to implement digital wallet payments, too. The day of the cleaning service, customers receive an alert when the Loop Partner is in its way, when they arrive, and when they finish. Finally, when Loop Partners finish the cleaning service, customers could rate them.

Loop's providers app allow Loop Partners to schedule the cleaning services that are convenient for them - in terms of time, income and distance. They could see the amount of their next payment, and rate their customers.

Every Friday, Loop creates a payment report, which interacts with Loop's bank account, making it possible to pay all Loop Partners in less than a minute.

Which moves us the most, is that when a Loop Partner accepts a service, the customer that hired it, receives more than her personal information. They receive the Loop Partner's journey, told by herself. It is a short story that is working reconnecting locals and migrants as equals. It is meant to move locals to rethink about migration, transforming the perception they might have about migrants due to media - in Peru, media has an unfortunate roll painting migrants as delinquents or as a hazard - and recognize their own story in the story of the Loop Partner. 

Loop is fully committed to build a diverse international team. 

Our staff have people from Peru, Venezuela and Colombia.

Today, we are a team 100% conformed by women - staff of six women and 60 Venezuelan migrant women working as Loop Partners. 

The ages of our staff are between 26 and 52 years-old, our Loop Partners are between 22 and 63-years-old.

After participating at the accelerator 'The Gender Mainstream Scaling Fund' - an iniciative of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)- , we realized we have unintentionally been excluding men from our team and from our strategies. 

Today we are working with gender lens. 

As our team is about to grow fast, we are updating our recruitment policies to allow men to be part of our team. 

We have realized that although men represent 30% of our customers, we were not considering them in our communications or strategies; today we areredesigning our marketing strategies to include men's perspective.

Loop's business model is the following:

FOR CUSTOMERS

The first time a person wants to hire a cleaning service for her home (2 min):

* Downloads the app from Google Play or AppStore, and creates her user.

* 'Creates her home in the app' by registering its address, its area and its number of rooms or spaces .

Each time the customer wants to hire a service (30 secs):

* Clic 'New Service', choose her home, check the rooms or spaces that want to clean, choose the day/hour of the cleaning service, and pay.

In terms of minutes - 2 in average - a Loop Partner takes the service, and the customer receives her profile - picture, name, evaluations, number of services provided, rate, and her story.

The day of the service, the customer receives an alert when the Loop Partner is in her way to the cleaning service, an alert when she arrives, and a final alert when she finishes.

FOR LOOP PARTNERS:

* Once a Loop Partner is activated in the app - after approving the selection process and training program - she configured her availability.

* From then on, she permanently receives alerts of available services.

* She chooses the ones she prefer to attend, depending on the date, duration, distance from her home, and customer'rate.

* The day of the cleaning service, she uses the app to get to the customers' home.

* She clic the alerts 'On my way', 'I have arrived', and 'Service finished'.

At the end of each service, customers and Loop Partners rate each other.

Loop Partners receive 75% of the price of each service they provide, and 25% is received by Loop.

Loop Partners incomes are weekly transfered into their bank accounts.

The average service in Peru takes 4 to 4.5 hours and has a ticket of US$ 24 dollars. The average ticket in Chile is US 30 dollars.

For this particular projection, considering just Peru and Chile, and that Loop would attend 3% of their Market Share, by the end of 2026, attending 50 thousand services per month, with an average ticket of US$ 27 dollars - which represent an income of US$ 6.75 dollars per service for Loop - Loop would generate US$ 8,1 million dollars of anual income.

By today, Loop has received 253 thousand dollars in sales. We are about to achieve our breakeven point in two months - 250 more services per month.

Loop is going to be autosustainable in a new country, after operating one year and a half.

We are preparing our first investment round, which is going to be opened this year, to launch Loop in Chile - mainly directed for impact investors and / or venture capital funds with a thesis of financial inclusion for women.

We started Loop with a US$ 250 thousand dollar grant we received from USAID and IDB, because we won the Better Together Challenge. Last year we won 2 more grants, US$ 10 thousand dollars from ProInnovate, an iniciative of the Ministery of Production of Peru, and US$ 35 thousand dollars from Start Path Empodera, an accelerator from Mastercard and USAID. 

Additionally, we have received US$ 253 thousand dollars in sales.

As we mentioned before, we are about to become profitable.

Although, we have decided to open investment rounds to be able to take Loop to many countries quicker, to impact as many migrant women as possible, sooner.