Talent Platform Instawork Raises $60 Million

July 13, 2021 – Investors are pouring money into recruiting solutions businesses. Just recently, talent platform Instawork raised $60 million in series C financing, bringing total funding to $100 million. Craft Ventures led the round, with participation from Greylock, Corner Ventures, Four River Group, WndrCo and Tilman Fertitta, owner of Landry’s and the Houston Rockets; existing investors Benchmark, Spark Capital, GV, Burst Capital and SV Angel also participated.

Instawork is a digital marketplace connecting local businesses with qualified professionals across the U.S. The company says it aims to double its workforce in the country in the next few months.

“Our vision is to create the economic opportunities for local professionals and businesses that help everyone thrive,” said Sumir Meghani, co-founder and CEO of Instawork. “Balancing the demands of pandemic job recovery, security and flexibility with the massive labor needs posed by a reopened economy have never been more important.”

Instawork says the company has grown dramatically over the past 15 months as it adapted to the significant labor market effects of COVID-19, quickly expanding its marketplace to help address an imbalance of labor supply and demand.

“We are proud that our marketplace has become the go-to solution to connect qualified professionals looking for work with the businesses that need them most, and we are grateful for the opportunity to invest more in our local communities to help them adapt to today’s evolving labor market and support broader economic recovery,” Mr. Meghani said.

“As vaccine distribution expands dramatically across the U.S., we are in the midst of the most rapid economic recovery in U.S. history. Every day we hear more news about businesses that can’t hire workers to meet the sharp rise in demand,” said Jeff Fluhr, general partner at Craft Ventures. “Instawork has cracked the code for hiring flexible hourly workers: Its seamless marketplace solves the problem that hospitality businesses, restaurants, warehouses, sports stadiums and retail outlets have all been experiencing.”

Investment Funding

Here’s a look at some other recent funding deals secured by these companies from the Hunt Scanlon Media archives:

Oyster, a global platform that enables fully remote companies to hire full-time workers and contractors, has announced a $50 million series B funding round. With this new round Oyster will expand its HR platform to more countries among other things. The round was led by New York-based venture capital and private equity firm Stripes with the continued participation of existing investors Emergence Capital and The Slack Fund. Avid Ventures took part as well. “At Oyster we’ve created the world’s first distributed HR platform, allowing companies to hire, employ, and retain talented employees around the world,” said Tony Jamous, co-founder. “We’re on a mission to remove the barriers to global employment so that talented people across the globe can increase their employability no matter where they are.

Worksome recently closed a $13 million Series A funding round for its freelance talent platform — after racking up 10x growth in revenue since January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a remote working boom. Founded in 2017, Worksome is an enterprise platform that connects companies with freelancers looking for professional roles. The company helps medium and large companies, working with many freelancers at a time, filling vacancies within teams rather than assisting companies in outsourcing projects. According to Worksome CEO and co-founder Morten Petersen, most enterprises use managed service providers (MSPs) to manage and pay external workers. He said that they use “outdated technology that is not built for managing fluid workforces to handle complex compliance processes around hiring and managing freelance workforces.”

SeekOut, the AI-powered talent 360 platform, has received $65 million in series B funding led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from existing investors Madrona Venture Group and Mayfield. This capital raise brings SeekOut’s total funding to $73 million. This funding round values SeekOut at close to half a billion dollars. SeekOut’s growth and expansion has been driven by the critical role it plays in empowering talent acquisition teams to recruit hard-to-find and diverse talent. SeekOut has consistently received high scores and strong reviews in analyst and customer assessments.

GoodJob, a platform that aims to use psychology and data science to match workers with jobs, recently raised $3 million to increase marketing and sales efforts in major markets across the U.S. “GoodJob’s solution is ideal for today’s market,” said Stephen D. Johnston, CEO of GoodJob. “Prior to an interview and without introducing bias, employers can quickly assess a candidate’s fit on the front end of the hiring process,” said Mr. Johnston. “This approach allows companies to spend time only on candidates who have a high probability of success, which significantly impacts hiring efficiency, especially as companies move to no-touch hiring practices.”

Turing.com, which describes itself as an automated platform that enables companies to use and manage remote software developers, has assembled $32 million Series B funding. The capitalization round was led by $3.3 billion fund WestBridge Capital. The round includes a number of high-profile investors, including Foundation Capital, which led Turing’s seed round. Altair Capital, Mindset Ventures, Frontier Ventures and Gaingels also participated in the Series B round. Driven by the massive global shift to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Turing taps into a global pool of developers to help companies hire in markets such as the San Francisco Bay Area and New York, where it has been difficult and expensive to hire and retain software engineers.

The Mom Project, a talent marketplace, closed a $25 million series B funding round, bringing total funding at the Chicago-based company to $36 million. The Mom Project aims to connect women, including mothers, with employment opportunities. Its platform has amassed more than 275,000 users and more than 2,000 companies, including brands like Apple, Nike, Gap and BP. “Together we’ve proven that hiring, retaining and supporting moms and caregivers isn’t just a nice thing to do — it’s great for business,” said Allison Robinson, founder and CEO. “We’re in a unique moment in time where companies are embracing flexible work and prioritizing inclusion, and are excited to rapidly accelerate our efforts to unlock the potential of moms in the workplace. Our latest round of funding will help expand our Enterprise product suite, build out our mom community engagement strategy and engage with more small business customers.”