AI Job-Matching Platform Pymetrics Secures $40 Million in Funding

October 4, 2018 – Investment dollars continue to pour into new technology designed to change the talent management industry. The latest: pymetrics, an enterprise SaaS company that uses neuroscience and AI to make the recruitment process more effective, accurate and unbiased, has closed a $40 million Series B funding round led by global growth equity firm General Atlantic.

This funding also includes participation from new investors Salesforce Ventures and Workday Ventures, and existing investors Khosla Ventures and Jazz Venture Partners.

Founded in 2013, pymetrics utilizes neuroscience and AI to assess job applicants across a range of cognitive, social and emotional traits and algorithmically recommend the best-suited candidates to companies. The company’s algorithms are proactively audited for demographic bias using an algorithm bias detection tool, which evaluates candidates based on their cognitive and emotional traits rather than their resume, making the process free of gender, race and socioeconomic bias. If a person is not appropriate for the initial job pymetrics will match the individual to other opportunities within the same, or at a different, company.

The pymetrics platform also helps companies with internal mobility, workforce insights and reskilling, matching existing employees with new roles within their organization. “Companies like Unilever, Accenture and others have seen results like doubling hire yield, increasing diversity of hires up to 20 percent and a 65 percent increase in retention through the pymetrics platform,” pymetrics said.

The company launched an Asia-Pacific presence this year, opening offices in Singapore and Sydney, adding to its existing locations in New York and London. It will use the investment to accelerate international expansion and continue product development.

Frida Polli, pymetrics’ CEO and co-founder, said pymetrics fundamentally reinvents the job matching process by making resumes and rejection letters a thing of the past. “Candidates should be evaluated on their potential, not pedigree, and all candidates should be encouraged to find their ideal job rather than a rejection letter being the end of the road,” she said. “The current process does not use people’s time efficiently and it does not maximize human potential.”

“We believe pymetrics is at the forefront of the transition to digital recruiting, where companies no longer need to rely on traditional, outdated screening processes to find their best talent,” said Alex Crisses, managing director at General Atlantic.

Gary Reiner, operating partner at General Atlantic, also praised the company:  “From our experience, companies are increasingly focused on improving diversity and retention amongst their employee base,” he said. “We believe pymetrics offers the best solution to address these issues and we look forward to partnering with the company as it continues to grow.”

Investment Funding

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

Scout Exchange, a recruitment marketplace connecting employers with specialized recruiters, has received $100 million in funding from TRI Ventures. The funding will accelerate growth of Scout’s recruitment marketplace, which has been adopted by hundreds of employers including 50 Fortune 500 companies and thousands of specialty recruiters.

Reflektive, an HR analytics and employee engagement platform, has raised $60 million in Series C funding. The company says it will use the cash infusion to invest in research and development to help grow its cloud-based platform of people management solutions. It also plans to double its engineering team and expand strategies worldwide.

ENGAGE Talent, an AI software company that helps companies identify and effectively engage with passive candidates, has raised $3 million in new funding. Participating investors included Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Refinery Ventures and Grand Ventures. 

Joveo, a recruitment technology platform, raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Nexus Venture Partners. The start-up intends to use the cash infusion to continue to accelerate its product offerings, expand its partnerships and scale its AI/deep-learning layer. Apart from the funding announcement, Joveo also made public its acquisition of Ripple Labs.

New York-based human cloud firm Hyr raised $1.3 million in a seed funding round led by venture capital firm Flybridge Capital Partners, according to media reports. Hyr, which matches gig workers with hospitality companies, has boarded more than 10,000 workers since it started last year. The company is led by Erika Mozes and Joshua Karam.

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. 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. 

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.

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