TestGorilla raises $10m to remove bias from recruitment
The round was led by Notion Capital.
Why You Should Care
Hiring tech is booming.
The latest recruitment tech startup to raise capital is TestGorilla that aims to de-bias recruitment.
Is this another nail in the coffin for traditional CV screening?
Recruitment tech is hot right now.
Within a week of Boundless and Goodtime raising capital, Amsterdam-headquartered TestGorilla, which focuses on removing the bias and stress from recruitment, has closed a $10 million Seed round.
This comes just over six months after the HR tech startup raised $1.2 million in a pre-seed round.
This investment was led by Saas venture capital firm Notion Capital, which was joined by Partech, Next Play Ventures and various HR tech entrepreneurs, including Indeed co-founder Paul Forster and Peakon co-founder Phil Chambers.
TestGorilla’s platform enables teams to focus on skills, culture fit and intrinsic motivation, rather than CVs or experience, when hiring new talent.
It does this by providing relevant job screening tests that enable companies to actually be able to remotely assess whether the candidate is the right fit for the job. This is particularly important since it looks like virtual recruitment is here to stay and will outlast COVID-19.
Although the firm has only existed for nine months, TestGorilla has already supported more than 1,500 customers with their recruitment. Examples include Bain & Company, where one of the co-founders, Otto Verhage, was previously a partner, PepsiCo, the UK’s NHS and Sony.
Talking about the news, TestGorilla’s other co-founder Wouter Durville noted: “It’s unacceptable that only a quarter of the world’s workforce is in their dream job.
“Archaic hiring practices and unconscious bias have long fed into this problem as historically companies rank candidates based on their CVs and gut instinct.
“TestGorilla, however, enables companies to rank candidates based on solid data, gathered through our relevant testing exercises.
“By developing our platform and growing our library of smart screening tests, we are making it easier for hiring managers – across industries and job roles – to make a fast, informed decision on a candidate based on the most important criteria.
“TestGorilla’s assessments highlight high-potential candidates, many of which they may not have been considered on the basis of their CV. It also puts an end to costly mis-hires.”
Credit: TestGorilla.
Notion Capital general partner Jos White added: “Companies are moving to more of a remote way of working at least in part to give them more pools of talent to hire from. At the same time companies are prioritizing a more intentional approach to diversity and inclusion.
“TestGorilla fits perfectly with this rapidly changing environment with a platform that removes barriers and biases, and enables companies to find the people who are the very best match for a role wherever they are.”
