I’ve had a lot of different careers in a lot of different locations – from software engineering in Singapore to investment banking in New York City. In every job I had, I inevitably got involved in hiring and came to realize that the process was frustrating for both the hiring teams and candidates alike.
Moreover, every process decision we made – from where to post the jobs to which schools to target – was often based on anecdotes rather than data. Hiring is how opportunity is allocated in our economy, and I knew that I wanted this to be my life’s work.
My co-founders Maryam, Phillip, Konstantin, and I spent several years before we raised any funding exploring the space to understand why hiring was so broken. We built a job search engine to understand how candidates searched for jobs and studied the jobs of 40,000 companies around the world.
In the process, we realized that talent acquisition leaders wanted to build more robust, data-driven processes but were held back by the quality of their tools – which lacked the insights and collaboration features that were standard in the products that their peers in marketing, sales, and finance enjoyed.
Empowering recruiting teams with intelligence and control
We started by launching the Datapeople Editor in 2018, a simple idea that provided market calibration, clarity, and collaboration to one of the most frustrating parts of the hiring process – the writing of the job post. The idea took off. Before we were able to expand our team, Fortune 500 companies were emailing us asking for access. Our customers started asking for our tools to work where they work, and for more insights into different parts of their process. Very soon, we had hundreds of customers using the product in over 80 countries around the world.
What continues to amaze me and stood out to our investors was how diverse this customer base was – from early-stage tech startups to Fortune 500 companies like Conagra, from West African non-profits to universities and government organizations. TA leaders all over wanted to be empowered by data and to have intelligence and control over their entire hiring process.
Today I am thrilled to announce another milestone: Datapeople has raised a $13MM Series A led by GreatPoint Ventures and New Markets Venture Partners, with participation from our earlier investors First Round Capital, Nextview Ventures, and Uncork Capital, as well as two incredible operator syndicates, Gaingels and FOG Ventures.
The venture market has been uniquely challenging, but there are opportunities for resilient businesses and ideas to flourish. Despite a turbulent funding market, our substantially oversubscribed round is validation, not just of the traction and growth that the Datapeople platform has witnessed, but for the thesis that talent teams deserve better tooling focused on improving the hiring process.
Tackling critical recruiting questions and needs
Over the past 18 months, we have grown to have over 10,000 users use the Datapeople platform to edit 170,000 jobs. We’ve used our datasets to provide one-of-a-kind industry benchmarks like our Tech Hiring Report and publish original research like our study of the impact of DEI statements. Most recently, we’ve launched Datapeople Anywhere, which brings the power of Datapeople to wherever our users work.
This summer, we will launch a one-of-a-kind analytics suite designed to help companies answer critical recruiting process questions like “which of my job posts are non-compliant,” “where do candidates drop off in my funnel,” and “how diverse is my candidate pool?”
Our mission to empower TA teams to become true strategic partners in their organizations has never been more prescient or more relevant. Over the past four years, talent acquisition teams have often been the superheroes of their organizations, helping navigate incredibly tight labor markets, a pandemic, return-to-office, and a slew of new regulations which have placed huge emphasis on job descriptions like pay transparency laws. These superheroes deserve platforms that allow them to engage thousands of hiring managers and validate assumptions with data.
I started this journey a decade ago with the goal of leveling the playing field for candidates. Along the way, I’ve realized that the only way we achieve that is by leveling the field within hiring organizations to give TA the seat at the table that they deserve. I am deeply grateful to our Datapeople team and our customers and investors who have supported, guided, and challenged us along the way.
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