Alfonso Villanueva

Jul 23, 2013

jobandtalent, a London and Madrid-based recruitment platform has closed a 2.5 million euros ($3.3 million) funding round led by a group of Spanish investors. Investors in the latest funding round include Kibo Ventures; Félix Ruiz and existing shareholder, Alfonso Villanueva. PRESS RELEASE jobandtalent (www.jobandtalent.com) – the London and Madrid-based recruitment platform which matches jobs to candidates through an innovative linguistics-based algorithm – announces today (Monday 22nd July), the closing of a €2.5 million (£2.2 million/$3.3 million) funding round led by a group of leading Spanish investors. Investors in the latest jobandtalent funding round include: • Kibo Ventures – an early stage fund backed by Telefonica among other relevant institutional investors. The Madrid-based €45 million early stage fund invests in high growth digital ventures. Kibo is investing through its first fund, Amerigo Spain Innvierte Technologies, FCR. • Félix Ruiz – co-founder of 15 million-user strong, Tuenti.com, known as the ‘Spanish Facebook’, in which Telefonica purchased an 85% stake for €70 million in 2010 • existing shareholder, Alfonso Villanueva – Senior Partner (Director) at McKinsey & Company, Singapore (formerly, Chief Innovation Officer at Singtel) Co-founder, Juan Urdiales of jobandtalent comments on the company’s mission: “There is something broken in the recruitment space, as more than a half of professionals are open to a career change, but they are missing great job opportunities. These individuals do not have time to browse amongst the millions of jobs posted daily on the Internet, and as a consequence, companies cannot target these candidates with their job postings alone. At jobandtalent, we are using our unique technology to solve this problem and automatically match professionals to relevant jobs – it’s like having a personal assistant looking out for suitable vacancies across the web. Our mission is to revolutionise and redefine the recruitment space online, ensuring that no one misses a great job opportunity ever again.” Jobandtalent founders Felipe Navio, 29, and Juan Urdiales, 32, have been testing different approaches within the recruitment industry since 2009, from career guides to a social media approach, pivoting into a pioneering algorithm-based platform in 2012, which sets it apart from other recruitment sites. The introduction of this linguistics-based algorithm, which matches candidates with jobs they might otherwise miss, coincided with the company moving its HQ to London. Since then, jobandtalent has emerged as an international recruitment platform of choice for over 200 leading European and global companies from multiple sectors seeking experienced candidates, including Accenture, Morgan Stanley, Ericsson, Booking, L’Oréal, or Deloitte, and has reached over 500,000 registered users. At the time of closing of the funding, jobandtalent has 20 members of staff, working mainly in technology, big data and marketing. “This funding round is a great validation for the company’s shift in focus,” jobandtalent’s co-founder Felipe Navio notes. “It will mainly be used to continue improving the accuracy of the matching algorithm, as well as developing native mobile apps that we believe will be a game-changer in terms of recruitment in the industry. Equally, the funding allows us to focus on boosting user-adoption in the United Kingdom, and prepare the platform for new markets (mainly the US and Latin America)”. Jobandtalent’s initial funding came from angel investors, and this round brings total funding to €3.6 million. How Candidates Take Advantage of jobandtalent – a personalised feed of job opportunities At the heart of jobandtalent is an innovative algorithm formulated in collaboration with HR and big data experts, and PhDs from the IULA (Research Institute for Applied Linguistics) of Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. This algorithm behaves like a virtual recruitment consultant or personal assistant – identifying and recognizing linguistic patterns within the structure and phrasing of both job adverts and CVs. These patterns are then converted into data points that match candidates with suitable job opportunities, even if they do not match a candidate’s or recruiter’s specifications word for word. This algorithm, which is under continuous development, allows jobandtalent to analyse hundreds of thousands of jobs from different recruitment boards and sites, suggesting suitable vacancies within a client’s field. In addition to the innovative algorithm that identifies linguistic patterns within job adverts and candidates’ CVs, jobandtalent also allows users to import some relevant information from Facebook in order to identify existing 1st and 2nd degree connections at a company, as well as obtain referrals and references from contacts. However, it is important to note that this process remains completely private – nothing can be seen by colleagues or friends on an individual’s timeline or newsfeed – but the candidate can see both 1st and 2nd degree contacts and connections who work – or have worked – at a particular company to which they might apply. How Recruiters Benefit from jobandtalent – obtain applications from ‘passive’ candidates What sets jobandtalent apart is that this algorithm saves employers a significant amount of time by removing the need to search through online databases of candidates such as LinkedIn or traditional recruitment sites: automatically seeking out passive candidates, who have registered their details on the site, but are not necessarily actively applying for positions. If a match between a candidate and vacancy is identified (via the complex linguistic data points produced via the jobandtalent algorithm) a message is automatically sent to the candidate to notify them about the role. This approach effectively generates applications from candidates who are perfectly-suited and open to such opportunities, but who otherwise might not have been aware of a particular vacancy given that they search the site less frequently than those actively seeking employment. The company’s core revenue is derived from companies paying a fee to place a job listing that links-up suitable prospective applicants with the listed vacancies, providing applications from candidates that were not actively searching for a job. © 2015 Buyouts Insider / Argosy Group LLC