TestGorilla Raises $1.2 Million as COVID-19 Fuels a Shift to Remote Hiring

November 24, 2020 – Pre-employment testing software company TestGorilla has raised $1.2 million in pre-series A funding from CapitalT and a group of international angel investors. Founded by serial entrepreneur Wouter Durville and former Bain & Company partner Otto Verhage, TestGorilla is an online skills assessment platform that launched this summer.

TestGorilla aims to make hiring more efficient and less biased by allowing organizations to use skills assessments at the top of the hiring funnel. In addition to assessments, the company provides one-way video interviewing functionality. “We believe that TestGorilla has launched at the perfect time,” said Eva de Mol, founder of CapitalT. “There’s a real need to increase efficiency early in the hiring process as companies new to remote hiring are being flooded with more resumes than they can review.”

Also contributing to the company’s rise is its focus on reducing the impact of hiring bias, TestGorilla said. “Events in the United States have highlighted the opportunity for leaders in the HR tech space to make a positive impact in the fight for equality.”

“The importance of diversity has never been more clear,” Mr. Durville said. “We developed TestGorilla to allow hiring teams to focus on qualified candidates more efficiently and without hiring discrimination.” Mr. Durville says that TestGorilla will primarily invest the funds into developing new features and adding new tests to TestGorilla’s growing library of over 120 tests.

CapitalT is a seed stage VC that invests in software technology companies. The fund focuses on digital health, education, B2B SaaS with an emphasis on discovering high-quality founding teams. In order to find these teams, CapitalT relies on proprietary technology to evaluate each company.

Investment Funding

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

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.”

Mya Systems, a conversational AI platform for hiring teams, announced that it has secured $18.75 million in Series C funding. The funding was led by Notion Capital with participation from earlier investors, Emergence Capital and Foundation Capital as well as Cisco Investments and Workday Ventures. Over the past year, Mya Systems gained tremendous momentum, seeing three times customer subscription growth in 2019 alone. Mya now supports over 460 brands, six of the eight largest recruiting firm, and 29 of the Fortune 100. Customers include industry leaders such as Hays, Adecco, L’Oreal, Deloitte and Anheuser Busch.

Headstart, a platform that leverages data science to help companies reduce unconscious bias in the hiring process, raised $7 million in funding led by AI-focused Silicon Valley venture capital firm FoundersX, with participation from Founders Factory. Launched in 2017, Headstart is one of a growing number of start-ups promising to help companies increase their diversity during recruitment drives. This is achieved through combining machine learning with myriad data sources to find the best candidates based on specific objective criteria.