SAP.iO, Author at SAP.iO • Page 33 of 92

SAP.iO In San Francisco, HR & People Engagement

Battling the great resignation? Startup Crosschq wants to arm businesses with AI to find and retain workers

Whether you’re looking for a new job or trying to hire new talent, everyone is a bit frustrated these days. Workers are burnt out and companies need to fill roles that are critical for their operations. Finding the right candidates is a perennial issue that has become even more pressing as businesses try to recover from the pandemic.

Exacerbating the problem is the so-called Great Resignation. According to polling from Gallup, around half of all workers are at least contemplating looking for a new job, a trend that speaks to an underlying dissatisfaction with the status quo as people reevaluate their priorities and personal goals.

Amid these dynamics, San Francisco HR platform Crosschq is trying to help businesses find and retain their best workers with a suite of cloud-based tools that leverage machine learning and AI systems for everything from reference checks to recruitment. The 3-year-old startup also offers analytics to predict retention rates to get an overview of patterns and how to change them.

Its mission has been aided by a recent expanded $30 million Series A round led by Tiger Global that brought its total funding to more the $40 million. Other investors include GGV Capital, Bessemer, SAP.iO, Rocketship.vc, NBA star Klay Thompson and Lattice CEO Jack Altman.

Connecting Foods Takes First Prize at EIT Digital Challenge 2021

EIT Digital, the European digital innovation and entrepreneurial education organisation, has announced the winners of its EIT Digital Challenge scaleup contest 2021.

This year’s 20 finalists were chosen from a record number of 409 scaleups from 33 countries who applied in this 8th edition of the EIT Digital’s flagship contest for digital deep tech companies. The companies applied in one of five strategic innovation areas: Digital Tech, Digital Industry, Digital Cities, Digital Finance and Digital Wellbeing.

The first prize was bagged by the French foodtech and blockchain platform, Connecting Food. The other two winners of the competition are Italy-based Cubbit and Germany-based NECT GmbH.

3i Inc. raises $24M in oversubscribed Series A funding round

3i Inc specializes in metaverse technology, artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). The immersive technology company is also a member of Born2global Centre.

Ken Kim, CEO of 3i said: “The metaverse is the next-generation platform, where soon, all media flows are expected to move. Our products and solutions help enterprises and content creators leap onto the metaverse much more easily, seamlessly, and quickly than ever before, changing the way the physical world interacts with the digital world.”

This most recent round of funding included $20 million from new financial and strategic investors. The remaining $4 million came from existing investors.

“3i is a company which is growing dramatically in B2B digital twin solutions using AI and AR/VR technologies and B2C video content creation platform,” said Joo-wan Jeong, Director at SV Investment, the investment company that led the funding round.

He added: “I made this investment because I believe 3i will be able to grow into the only global player that possesses both technology and content in the integrated metaverse.”

MarTech Interview with Ajay Khanna, Chief Marketing Officer at Explorium

Ajay Khanna, Chief Marketing Officer at Explorium highlights more on how B2B marketing will continue to be more data-driven, requiring marketers to focus on multiple data signals and data points to drive better marketing success.

You’ve recently taken over as CMO at Explorium, we’d love to hear more about your role here and what are some of the key marketing aspects you’re first focusing on to deepen optimization (like, hiring, improving/enhancing the martech stack?!)

Explorium offers a unique platform in the data space. It provides an External Data Platform that automatically discovers thousands of relevant data signals and uses them to improve analytics and machine learning. I’ve spent my last seven-plus years working with data products and was amazed by what Explorium has developed. So I joined the team to take this fantastic product to the market and help grow and scale the company.

The company was recently named a Cool Vendor by Gartner and the Next Billion Dollar Startup by Forbes and we want to keep this growth momentum going. The initial marketing initiatives were building the right team for product marketing, demand generation, digital, content, putting the right processes in place, and building the right tech stack that will help us scale.

How have you seen B2B /tech digital marketing technologies and digital marketing trends evolve during this time in the industry?

Yes, marketing has evolved considerably since I first started in this field. It has become much more data-driven, technology-enabled, and process-oriented. Having the right tools and processes that can help you quickly test your hypothesis and execute your ideas is critical. Speed is essential, and agility is a must. Especially during the last year, marketers had to devise new messaging and find new ways to connect to their customers. Being responsive in the fast-changing market was very important. The shift to digital technologies also became critical as in-person events and meet-ups were not possible. We have learned newer ways to connect with and serve customers in the last year because of access to the right data and digital technologies.

Read more of the interview here

SAP.iO In Fund, Funding Announcement, HR & People Engagement

Most freelancers don’t make 6 figures, Wethos raised $8m to change that

In Q2 of this year, 11.5 million people answered this question by quitting their jobs. Next to retail, business services saw the biggest exodus of talent to freelancing, which is projected to be over half of the workforce by 2030. Today, leaving a corporate job means leaving your corporate paycheck and benefits, a risky move when only 5% of freelancers make over $100k a year. Freelance as a viable and lucrative career has been out of reach for most, but in the words of Vice President Harris: “I often say that the ability we should all have is to see what can be, unburdened by what has been.”

Today, we’re thrilled to announce Wethos’ new $8M round of funding led by Third Prime with participation from new investors Javelin, Full Circle, F7 Ventures, Clocktower, and Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, as well as continued support from Laconia, Valuestream, and many others. We’re also excited to add Wes Barton from Third Prime and Vivian Cheng from Javelin to our board alongside existing board member Dion Ridley, Engineering Leader at Netflix Studios. This fresh injection of capital follows 100x growth since we launched with just 100 studios less than a year ago. We proudly power nearly 10,000 virtual studios, which have won over $54M in projects by leveraging Wethos’ tools.

Employee development platform GrowthSpace raises $15 million Series A led by M12

Israeli startup GrowthSpace, which has developed a platform for employee development programs, announced on Wednesday that it has secured a $15 million Series A investment round. The financing was co-led by M12, Microsoft’s venture fund, and Vertex Ventures. This latest round of funding, which also included previous investor M-Fund Club, brings GrowthSpace’s total amount raised to $19 million.

GrowthSpace has developed a technology that provides a personalized development program for employees. The system matches employees and experts after understanding their business goals and professional challenges. The company said it has over 1,000 coaches, mentors, and professionals speaking a variety of languages with expertise in 300 different skills. The company’s business model is based on an annual subscription that includes a certain amount of credits, with each credit being equal to one personalized development program for an employee which includes 5-7 meetings with an expert. The cost per credit drops as the subscription program grows.

Now Streaming: Binge-Worthy Digital Corporate Learning Programs

Imagine getting immersed in your next corporate training program the same way you’ve binged watched your favorite Netflix series. That’s the kind of engaging employee training experience that startup Hardskills has created.

Unlike traditional formats that rely on talking head lectures, Hardskills training programs are more akin to cinematic productions, featuring professional directors and actors who replicate real-world situations culturally aligned to global audiences. The objective is to serve up personalized content that builds someone’s human skills. As digital natives increasingly dominate the workforce, it turns out that skills such as being open to new ideas, critical thinking, and influencing people are prized just as much as technical know-how in the enterprise arena.

“Our digital learning platform delivers the content, technology, administration, and metrics that provide personalized, interactive training for people to gain the behavioral and cognitive skills they need,” said Shoba Purushothaman, co-founder and COO at Hardskills. “With data-driven assessments, we deliver personalized coaching based on the skills graph of each employee.”

Immerse “Upskill Ultimatum” Research Reveals Need for Businesses to Transform Training or Risk Losing Talent

Major research conducted by global software company, Immerse, reveals that nearly 50% of US and UK employees are prepared to move companies if they don’t receive the training they need, yet HR departments are not prepared to revamp old methods for another seven years. The lack of modern training leaves the door wide open for continued departures at a time when recruiting is in emergency mode.

Immerse’s brand new research, The Upskill Ultimatum, reveals that a majority of companies plan to wait until 2028 – when tech-savvy Gen Z workers will form a large proportion of the workforce – to deploy immersive training technologies^[1] across their organization. This is despite studies which have shown the effectiveness of these technologies in boosting knowledge acquisition and retention, and despite the fact that two-thirds of HR professionals believe that companies that fail to employ cutting-edge training technologies will struggle to attract and retain top talent.

he survey of 1,000 knowledge workers and 1,000 HR professionals across a range of sectors, conducted by Immerse, show massive fractures in the current training landscape. Nearly half of HR professionals (49%) believe that today’s training deployment is inadequate for a hybrid working world. Also, businesses are feeling the effects of this “learning drought”, with half of HR professionals reporting an emerging skills gap in their organization, resulting in operational company risk.

Immerse is a virtual reality technology company that has developed the Immerse Platform which enables companies to create, scale and measure virtual reality training. Having grown license revenues by 300% last year and with a global customer base and customers such as DHL, Nestlé and bp, Immerse are leaders in using VR to maximize human performance and the employee experience.

Crosschq Secures $30M in Tiger Global Led Series A Financing To Expand and Scale AI-Powered Talent Intelligence Cloud™

Crosschq, pioneers of the Talent Intelligence Cloud™ powering a revolution in data-driven hiring and people analytics, announced today an extension to its Series A financing bringing the total round to $30 million. Led by Tiger Global, this $16.5 million expansion included returning investors GGV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, SAP.iO, rocketship.vc, and new investors including Jack Altman, current CEO of Lattice.

“Our talent landscape is changing with unprecedented velocity and the need for advancements to drive better hiring decisions has never been greater,” said Mike Fitzsimmons, Co-Founder and CEO of Crosschq. “Our Talent Acquisition and DEI leaders are hungry for reliable data and analytics to source and retain the best talent. We are proud to be emerging as the Talent Intelligence vendor of choice for this increasingly complex environment.”

Over the past year, Crosschq’s Talent Intelligence Cloud™ has rapidly been adopted by talent leaders across all core sectors. In the last month alone, users of Crosschq’s platform have nearly doubled, up by 86%. In addition to attracting major players in the Enterprise Tech, Fin-Tech, and Media industries including Snowflake, Blend, Hubspot, and Dish Networks, the company has recently expanded solutions in the Life Sciences and Health Care sectors. Adoption by new customers including Carbon Health, CityBlock Health, and Hengrui, China’s largest pharmaceutical company, reflects this growing market segment for the company.

Constructor finds $55M for tech that powers search and discovery for e-commerce businesses

One of the biggest problems in the world of e-commerce is the predicament of shopping cart abandonment: when shoppers aren’t getting to what they want fast enough — whether it’s finding the right item, or paying for it in a quick and easy way — they bounce. That singular problem is driving a wave of technology development to make the experience ever more seamless, and today one of the companies closely involved in that space is announcing some funding on the back of healthy growth.

Constructor, which has built technology that powers search and product discovery tools for e-commerce businesses, has picked up $55 million in a Series A round of funding. Constructor says that it powers “billions” of queries every month, with revenues growing 233% in the last year. Customers it works with include Sephora, Walmart’s Bonobos, Backcountry and many other big names.

Airwallex raises $200M at a $4B valuation to double down on business banking

Business, now more than ever before, is going digital, and today a startup that’s building a vertically integrated solution to meet business banking needs is announcing a big round of funding to tap into the opportunity. Airwallex — which provides business banking services directly to businesses themselves as well as via a set of APIs that power other companies’ fintech products — has raised $200 million, a Series E round of funding that values the Australian startup at $4 billion.

Lone Pine Capital is leading the round, with new backers G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management, and previous backers 1835i Ventures (formerly ANZi), DST Global, Salesforce Ventures and Sequoia Capital China also participating.

The funding brings the total raised by Airwallex — which has head offices in Hong Kong and Melbourne, Australia — to $700 million, including a $100 million injection that closed out its Series D just six months ago.

Airwallex Raises Funds at $4 Billion Valuation for Expansion

Airwallex Cayman Ltd. raised $200 million to accelerate its expansion in global payments as it taps investors keen on fast-growing fintechs. The Australian company attracted funding from investors led by Lone Pine Capital, boosting its valuation to $4 billion after the series E round, the company said in a statement on Monday. Other new investors include G Squared and Vetamer Capital Management.

“We want to accelerate our growth in the U.K., Europe and U.S.,” Jack Zhang, chief executive officer of Airwallex, said in a phone interview. He added that the company wants to “become a dominant leader in global payments.”

Airwallex’s fundraising comes just months after a round in March that gave the firm a valuation of $2.6 billion, underscoring the rapid growth in online payments. Last month Square Inc., the digital-payments platform led by Twitter Inc. founder Jack Dorsey, agreed to buy Australian buy-now, pay-later company Afterpay Ltd. for $29 billion.

Airwallex helps businesses set up bank accounts, process multicurrency payments and manage expenses. While the company has numerous Chinese clients including Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat, retailer JD.com Inc. and online learning platform 51Talk, its focus on cross-border payments has kept it clear of a regulatory crackdown on other parts of the country’s financial system.

Recruiting technology company Humanly.io raises $4.2 million in seed funding round

A technology company that uses artificial intelligence in recruiting job candidates has raised $4.2 million, including funding from two local venture capital firms.

Humanly.io is headquartered in Seattle and Sacramento, and it raised the recent seed fund from investors including Moneta Ventures of Folsom and Growth Factory Capital in Rocklin.

“We will use the money to scale up the team and the product,” co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gardner told the Business Journal.

The company currently has 10 employees, most of whom work remotely, though the company has small offices in Seattle and Sacramento.

The funding this week was led by Zeal Capital Partners in Washington, D.C., and also included Spark Growth Ventures, Basecamp Fund and Y Combinator.

According to venture capital tracking website Crunchbase, Humanly.io has raised a total of $5.3 million since its launch in 2019.

Humanly.io uses artificial intelligence software to automate screening and scheduling of hiring for companies and recruiters. It also has a suite of software that helps recruiters and hiring managers be more efficient during job candidate interviews and virtual interviews over teleconferencing.

Paradox’s New Experience Assistant Named HR Executive Top Product of 2021

Paradox, the conversational recruiting software company helping global brands like Unilever and McDonald’s streamline the hiring process through automation with a human touch, announced its newest product, Experience Assistant, earned the top honor in HR Executive annual best HR technology solutions awards.

Experience Assistant was selected because it fundamentally transforms how candidates interact with a company — instantly turning any existing career site into a dynamic content-driven and hyper-personalized interaction on both mobile and desktop devices. While Paradox’s flagship recruiting assistant, Olivia, has built a reputation for helping global recruiting teams get work done, Experience Assistant focuses on the candidate.

“For years, the holy grail of candidate experience has been true 1:1 personalization at scale, but it’s been elusive at best,” said Aaron Matos, Paradox Founder and CEO. “We have a vision for the next-generation of consumer-grade recruiting software — and Experience Assistant builds on that vision. We don’t believe employers should be forced to overhaul their career site to create unique, dynamic experiences. Now, they don’t have to.”

Each year, HR Executive top product award recognizes the most innovative new technology solutions that are helping business leaders meet the critical HR needs of their organizations. The staff of HR Executive selects the Top HR Products each year after performing an extensive evaluation of the submissions with help from a panel of industry experts.

Amberdata Raises $15M Series A Led by Citi

Amberdata, the digital asset data company, announced it has raised $15 Million Series A led by Citi. Franklin Templeton, Galaxy Digital, Rovida Kruptos Assets, and executives at GoldenTree Asset Management also participated in the capital raise. They are joined by HWVP who previously led Amberdata’s Series Seed.

Amberdata will use the funds to double R&D headcount and expand go-to-market both in the United States and internationally.

Amberdata delivers comprehensive data and insights into blockchain networks, crypto markets, and decentralized finance. Founded in 2017, Amberdata analyzes over 8 million blockchain network transactions and more than $500 Billion in trading activities daily. The platform powers financial institutions with data for research, trading, risk, analytics, reporting, and compliance. It serves as a critical piece of infrastructure for investors entering the asset class and participating in digital asset markets. Institutional customers can easily integrate real-time and historical data and metrics via FIX, REST, WebSockets, and RPC and gain access to reference rates, Indexes, and analytics.

“Partnering with the exceptional group of strategic investors gives us unprecedented insights into institutions’ roadmap and challenges,” said Shawn Douglass, CEO at Amberdata. “Blockchain technology enables entirely new financial products to be created and offered at a much lower cost with global market reach. We see growing institutional interest and demand in crypto assets. Our customer list and investors are a stamp of approval for the value we are creating for institutions.”