ExecThread Raises $6.5 Million to Grow Crowdsourced Jobs Platform

September 25, 2017 – Investment dollars continue to pour into new technology designed to change the talent management game. ExecThread, a job-sharing network for executives and an aggregator of unpublished executive level job opportunities, has secured $6.5 million in an oversubscribed equity financing.

It was led by venture capital investors Canaan Partners and Javelin Venture Partners, with participation from Corazon Capital, CoVenture, NextView Ventures and notable angel investors. As part of the investment, Jed Katz, managing director at Javelin, and Warren Lee, general partner at Canaan, joined ExecThread’s board of directors.

ExecThread was created by CEO Joe Meyer to address shortcomings in the traditional executive search process that he says he witnessed as both a candidate and as a hiring manager. Leveraging artificial intelligence and a peer-to-peer crowdsourcing approach, ExecThread allows executives to discover career-advancing job opportunities and gives them greater control over the job discovery process. ExecThread also connects executive recruiters and hiring managers with what the company says are carefully vetted candidates, thereby helping to improve candidate identification and reduce time-to-hire.

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Taking Aim at Search Firms

“Executive recruiting hasn’t changed in decades, and isn’t designed to address the unique and evolving needs of senior level professionals and hiring managers,” said Mr. Meyer, former CEO of HopStop (acquired by Apple) and a former executive at AOL and GM at eBay. “We saw an opportunity to disrupt the $120 billion global talent acquisition market, which is loaded with inefficiency, through a unique give-to-get model that provides professionals with far greater access to hidden career opportunities than traditional recruiting methods. Through a mix of rich profile data and advanced technology, we enable the best candidates to be matched with the best career opportunities thereby making hiring a far more efficient and effective process.”

Metrics Point the Way Forward

ExecThread cited several key statistics to support its approach:

• Fifty percent of job openings are not advertised, according to Duncan Mathison (author of ‘Unlock the Hidden Job Market’)
• Fifty eight percent of active candidates and 81 percent of passive candidates found new jobs via the hidden job market, according to a recent survey conducted by Lou Adler (author of ‘The Essential Guide for Hiring & Getting Hired’)
• Eighty percent of the half million job opportunities that pay $100,000 or more that are filled every month in the U.S. are unadvertised, according to the late Mark Hovind. (Both Mr. Mathison and Mr. Hovind’s findings, ExecThread said, are based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics)
• Forty five percent of job applicants never hear back from the employer or outside recruiter, and 83 percent of the applicants rate their job search experience as poor, according to the Talent Board

ExecThread’s membership includes board members, C-suite executives, vice presidents and director level professionals from 80 percent of the Fortune 100, 75 percent of the top 100 global brands and 60 percent of leading start-up companies with $1 billion valuations.

The network is now allowing professionals to apply for membership without being referred, ExecThread said. To ensure high network quality, the group said, it created a two-pronged applicant vetting system, which combines an interactive “peer review” process with an automated and statistical evaluation of many professional attributes.

Investment Funding

HR data analytics is big business, and getting bigger. And new tools for HR professionals are much welcomed. Only 52 percent of organizational leaders say they are satisfied with the data they currently receive from their recruitment process outsource provider, according to the ‘Measuring Up’ report released by Korn Ferry subsidiary, Futurestep. Low volume of data, accuracy of metrics and alignment with business outcomes were specifically highlighted as problem areas by businesses monitoring performance metrics.

Here’s some further reading from Hunt Scanlon Media:

New Money Pouring Into Talent Management Metrics
Randstad Holding, a firm specializing in solutions in the field of flexible work and HR services, is leading a seed financing in Focus Orange Technology. Randstad’s service offerings range from temporary staffing and permanent placements to in-house, professionals, search & selection, and HR Solutions.

Other investors continue to pour money into HR recruiting solutions. Here’s a look at some recent funding deals secured by these companies from the Hunt Scanlon Media archives:

Personio, the German HR management and recruiting platform, has raised $12 million (€10.5 million) in a series A round from investor Northzone. With the influx of new money, Personio is looking to push its software-as-a-service (SaaS) product in an effort to become the leader in the human resources software market for small and mid-sized companies across Europe.

Workey, the next-gen AI solution for career development and recruitment, has launched in the U.S. after closing an $8 million Series “A” funding round, led by PICO Partners and Magma VC. The funding was immediately put to use, with Workey opening an office in New York City and hiring for that location already underway.

YouEarnedIt, an SaaS company that is attempting to alter how companies drive employee engagement and bottom line performance metrics, recently closed $6.5 million in funding. YouEarnedIt can consolidate employee engagement initiatives into one, easy to use mobile platform.

Talent acquisition platform SmartRecruiters recently raised $30 million in series C financing, led by Insight Venture Partners. The company plans to leverage the additional capital to sustain its rapid growth, accelerate its global market presence, and continue to invest in its product footprint to serve the needs of the more than 5,000 enterprise companies.

Reflektive, an HR analytics and employee engagement platform, has secured $13 million in series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Reflektive will use the new funding to accelerate development of its platform, enhance customer success and hire across all departments to support its mission to revolutionize performance management.

Glassdoor, the job and recruiting marketplace, closed a $40 million investment round recently, led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates. The financing will support Glassdoor’s continued growth and investments in product, marketing and people around the globe, according to internal sources at the company.

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor; and Will Schatz, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media