Applicant tracking remains big business

In the wake of the ‘Great Resignation‘, large corporations are in need of dependable systems to efficiently and effectively process the applications that they are receiving in a period of great employee turnaround. Now, more than ever, hiring technology is essential to managing this employee culture shift.

Yesterday, the ATS (applicant tracking system) firm Fountain announced that they have garnered an additional $100 million in funding for high volume hiring technology. This funding is an extension of its November 2021 Series C round by $100 million, which brings its total funding to $185 million. 

Fountain’s ATS technology can automatically hire hourly job applicants without the go-between of interviews or drawn out waiting to hear back.

The company’s ATS programming has processed over 68 million job applications, and has helped larger hourly employers hire more than nine million workers in more than 75 countries. 

How Fountain has grown

Fountain’s technology has assisted businesses like sweetgreen, StitchFix, and Just Eat Takeaway to successfully process millions of applicants. 

Its ATS in tandem with the current job market has propelled Fountain into a long and accelerated period of growth, as the company has seen a ten-times increase since a Series B investment in September of 2019 that has only continued to push the company into tripling business each year from 2020 to 2021. 

“This extension of our Series C is a testament to the incredible growth Fountain has seen over the past year and will help us to continue to exceed the demands of the world’s leading brands for high volume hiring,” said Sean Behr, CEO of Fountain. 

Fountain’s latest funding was led by B Capital Group in collaboration with SoftBank, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, DCM, Origin Ventures, Commerce Ventures, SemperVirens Venture Capital, Uncork Capital and others.

“We are thrilled to back the Fountain team as they continue to broaden the platform, expand their presence globally and strengthen their lead in the market that helps organizations find, hire and retain hourly workers at scale, said Sami Ahmad, general partner at B Capital Group. 

Why this technology?

Fountain claims that it seeks to impact the workforce from end to end.

The simplified application process protects job-seeking applicants from the frustrations of bureaucratic and backlogged hiring processes while simultaneously allowing the employers to screen for the ideal applicants.  

Behr tells UNLEASH: “If the last 24 months have taught us all something, it is the importance of front line hourly workers to our lives.

“I think we can all relate to grocery stores that don’t have their shelves stocked with the items we need. Or restaurants that have to close early due to staffing. Or really long lines to get coffee or to get a prescription filled.” 

As every sector as the job market has seen, the pandemic has uniquely altered the hiring processes of every company, as the ‘Great Resignation’ changes the shape of employer-employee relationships.