Here’s how Param.ai, Shortlist and Scriptifi have grown in a year
As per a CB insights research, the HR Tech sector witnessed 33 deals in quarter one 2018 and accounted for $642 Mn, making Q1’18 the second highest funded quarter ever. The emerging new digital solutions, with emerging new startups, are making great waves and grabbing the attention of a lot of investors. With HR Tech market being one of the most attractive sectors for business, many new names of service providers have come up in this space.
Some of these evolving HR Tech startups were part of the People Matters TechHR Startup Program last year. From engagement and recruitment chatbots to performance management apps, these companies showcased various tech solutions to investors, mentors and HR leaders. At that time last year, some of them were looking for more investments, while others were looking for more clients. From then till now, many of the startups that participated in the program have grown and expanded, in terms of business, size and scale.
With TechHR Startup Program 2018 around the corner, let’s take a look at how some of these startups have grown and know more about their journey:
Param.ai
When this recruitment tech startup participated in the program last year, it was backed by Satya D. Sinha and Gyanendra Singh, Founders of Mancer Consulting. Until last year, it provided an AI-based inbound hiring solution which helped companies make data-backed hiring decisions by streamlining, cleaning and standardizing their data sets.
From then till now it has raised seed funding of $271K, has improvised its existing product, and introduced a new product, automated hiring assistant ‘Lisa.'
Founded in 2017 by Hari Krishna Morthala and Ashish Kumar Sahoo, Param.ai is currently backed by National award winner actor Ashish Vidyarthi, who was also one of the Mentors in last year’s Startup Program. After raising money in December 2017, Param.ai worked on its previous product and moved on from providing an inbound hiring solution to creating a new version that works as a stand-alone platform giving companies the option to migrate their ATS data, helping them make optimum use of their ATS data. It also came up with a chatbot, Lisa. It is powered by Google assistant and helps recruiters to screen and further qualify candidates by automating the recruiter screening discussion. It also acts as a medium of communication between the applicant and the recruiter.
On their experience in TechHR, the founders said, “We couldn’t have asked for a better forum than TechHR to present the product. This forum helped us get the idea validated, gave us the visibility in the HR community, connected us with potential investors and also helped us get first-hand feedback from industry leaders.”
Scriptifi
Founded in April' 17 by Pranjal and Abhimanyu, when Scriptifi participated in TechHR Startup Program last year, it had a clientele of 20+ companies. However, it has come a long way since then and has partnered with some of the best firms in India.
Pranjal Mehrotra (Founder & CEO) said, “We had a good start with 25 odd clients in 90 days of our journey leading up to the TechHR Conference. TechHR helped us in gaining prominence and creating awareness. After the great feedback we received from investors and mentors across the board, our growth catapulted to a new level."
He further added, "Ten months have passed and we are now associated with 75+ of the most innovative organizations of our generation (including some Fortune 500s). We have now initiated conversations with investors to raise our pre-series A round of funding.”
Scriptifi provides a unique online recruitment marketplace which connects employers to hand-picked recruitment experts within their industry. Through technology, it is trying to redefine the speed, quality and cost of hiring by leveraging the "machine intelligence" of the smart algorithms and "human intelligence" of the recruitment experts.
Abhimanyu (Co-Founder & COO) added, "With a 100% growth Q-O-Q, we are on our way to turning profitable in Aug'18 at an overall level (including Capex). We have a great pipeline in store for the year & foresee an 800-1000 percent growth Y-O-Y"
Shortlist
After participating in the TechHR Startup Program in August 2017, Shortlist, an India-Africa based recruitment startup, secured $1 Mn in a seed funding from University Ventures and Indian angel investor Samir Shah of Sattva Capital. It had a team size of 20 to 50 people with 20 to 50 companies on board.
As per the latest update it has been working with 100+ companies and specializes in junior to mid-level roles. In 2017, to further expand its operations, it also acquired Africa Nairobi-based talent development company, Spire Education.
Shortlist was launched by Simon Desjardins, Paul Breloff, and Matt Schnuck in early 2016 in India and in the mid of the same year in Kenya. It helps companies with recruitment by combining technology and human touch to screen the candidates.
“The single biggest challenge for growing companies is finding the right talent to scale,” said Paul in 2017, when it raised seed funding. “We believe that both job seekers and employers deserve a better way to find each other and gauge fit. We thus desire to fix this broken talent marketplace, and believe the mix of expertise across India, East Africa, and the United States will add significant strategic value as we build on our early traction.”
Be a part of the transformation journey and apply for this year’s TechHR Startup Program. Click here to register and grab the opportunity to meet and interact with VC investors, industry leaders and influencers.