RefAssured Secures Funding

January 26, 2023 – Recruiting software start-up RefAssured has secured pre-seed funding led by Bullhorn Ventures, along with several other recruiting industry entrepreneurs. RefAssured’s mission is to show recruiting and talent agencies how to maximize the value reference checking while building new client and talent relationships.
“Bullhorn Ventures is so excited to be an early investor in RefAssured, not only because of the product but also because of the team,” said Nina Eigerman, senior vice president of alliances and business development at Bullhorn. “The founders have domain expertise as both staffing business operators and staffing software providers, giving us confidence in the direction of their development. RefAssured is not just a tool for recruiter productivity, it’s a way to enhance connections throughout the recruitment cycle. The early feedback from the market reflects how well aligned the product is to the needs of the staffing industry.”
“Having grown up in the staffing industry, we’re excited to continue to work with staffing agencies and software partners to deliver meaningful improvements to talent and client experiences,” said Brian Vesce, founder and CEO of RefAssured.
The investment will be used to accelerate RefAssured’s product development, deepen automation capabilities, advance integrations with partners, and expand its growing customer base.
Bullhorn, a global provider of software for the recruiting industry, announced the launch of Bullhorn Ventures to invest in early-stage software companies with the potential to deliver unique value to third-party staffing and recruiting firms. In addition to financial investment, Bullhorn Ventures provides mentorship and other resources to help speed up the growth of promising companies.
Investment Funding
Investors are pouring money into recruiting solutions businesses, especially those with a psychology and data science component. Here’s a look at some other recent funding deals secured by these companies from the Hunt Scanlon Media archives:
ShiftKey, a Dallas-based healthcare recruiting company, has closed on a funding round sponsored by majority investor Lorient Capital, valuing the company in excess of $2 billion. Crunchbase News reported the round was for $300 million. Lorient’s investment was completed through a continuation vehicle that was led by the Ares Management Secondaries funds and Pantheon. Additional investors participating along with Lorient, Ares, and Pantheon include Clearlake Capital and Health Velocity Capital.
Chicago-headquartered referral recruiting service Hunt Club has raised $40 million Series B round co-led by WestCap and Sator Grove. The investment round follows Hunt Club’s $10 million Series A financing in October 2021, and will fuel the company’s national expansion, technology platform enhancements, and broaden its community of over 20,000 business leaders who help connect the most innovative companies to the world’s top candidates. “We’re reimagining the entire talent process. Top talent leaders are not only hard to find, but they are hard to reach – and traditional recruiting firms aren’t equipped to innovate for their customers,” said Nick Cromydas, co-founder and CEO of Hunt Club. “Our technology is bridging that gap, introducing a personalized approach to helping companies change the way they approach talent acquisition. Hunt Club is proud to partner with WestCap, a premier growth equity firm led by a team that has founded, invested in, and operated tech-enabled marketplaces such as Airbnb for over 20 years.”
JobGet, a mobile app for hourly workers, has secured $52 million in Series B funding including $12 million in venture debt financing. JAZZ Venture Partners and Sanabil Investments co-led the round, with participation from Pillar VC and numerous other investors. “Our app is just the beginning,” said Tony Liu, co-founder and CEO. “We are building a new type of platform that enables deeper relationships between our talented hourly workers and hiring managers, with intelligent technology connecting both to better opportunities.” “We’re delighted to continue to support JobGet’s explosive growth,” said Zack Lynch, managing partner, JAZZ Venture Partners. “The company has deepened its executive bench with rich expertise that will turbocharge their efforts to transform the job seeking experience for hourly workers.”
SeekOut has announced a $115 million series C funding round led by Tiger Global Management. The round values the Seattle-based company – an artificial intelligence-powered talent search engine – at more than $1.2 billion. “The Great Resignation remains top of mind for both employees and employers as we enter 2022,” said Matthew Merker, research manager, talent acquisition and strategy at IDC. “The way employees look for work opportunities has fundamentally changed, and employers need to rethink how they find new talent and retain existing talent. SeekOut’s data-driven Talent 360 platform offers organizations an advanced set of capabilities that help ease this transition and redefine enterprise talent optimization moving forward.”
Hirewell, a Chicago-based talent acquisition firm, secured an investment of $21 million from Prytek, a global investment firm with expertise in integrating global services firms with cutting-edge technologies. Prytek will provide capital to enable Hirewell to accelerate its organic growth and integrate technology into its managed recruiting services. As part of this investment, Hirewell will acquire ICV, a Tel Aviv-based software company. “The talent acquisition space has evolved significantly over the past 10 years, but technology has yet to truly disrupt the industry,” said Matt Massucci, founder and CEO of Hirewell. “Recruiters increasingly rely on multiple platforms, most of which don’t integrate or have limited functionality, and some of which actually compete with the recruiters they claim to support. The ability to combine best-in-class recruiters with cutting-edge technology will equip us to be the ideal recruiting partner for companies that are serious about finding top talent. We are thrilled to partner with Prytek to take that step and continue delivering powerful results to our clients.”
Related: LCap Group Invests in Rowan Executive Search
Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief; Dale M. Zupsansky, Managing Editor; and Stephen Sawicki, Managing Editor – Hunt Scanlon Media