South Africa’s Recruitment Startup Giraffe Secures Funding From Edge Growth’s Vumela Fund, Omidyar Network And Others
Recruitment platform Giraffe has piqued interest by announcing a successful round of funding. The equity funding was led by prominent hitters Edge Growth’s Vumela Fund, followed by Omidyar Network, Forever Young Capital, and Catapult Trust.
Having identified a niche market for businesses and the need to drive high volumes of quality staffing, the Johannesburg based platform leverages mobile technology and proprietary matching algorithms to enable companies to recruit high volumes of quality, medium-skilled staff, faster and more affordable than other recruitment methods. The platform services both the business aspect but more importantly it alleviates the stress of job seekers by giving them greater access to job opportunities at no cost.
Their business model has proven successful when dealing with businesses demanding high volumes of recruits such as call centers, insurance sales organizations, field sales organizations and other businesses that hire large volumes of staff on a regular basis. Founded by Anish Shivdasani, the two-year-old start-up has, since its launch, facilitated over 150, 000 interviews and attracted over 500, 000 job seekers to their platform.
Although undisclosed, this concluded round of funding is the second the start-up has been involved in, having earlier secured seed funding from Omidyar Network. The Silicon Valley-based venture fund has been involved from the start and partners from the fund have been impressed by the impact Giraffe is having on the South African economy.
“Giraffe continues to revolutionize the hiring process in South Africa, especially for medium-skilled workers,” said Badri Pillapakkam, investment partner at Omidyar Network. “The seasoned and mission-aligned founding team, the product roadmap towards full-stack hiring automation, and the opportunity for disrupting high-volume medium-skilled recruitment across emerging markets excites us.”
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These sentiments are echoed by Janice Johnston who heads up Edge Growth’s Vumela Fund. “Giraffe initially came to our attention two years ago due to its innovative, scalable business model solving such a critical problem in South Africa. We followed Giraffe’s progress and were impressed by the team’s ability to gain traction and to meet the key milestones they set for themselves as well as the robust tech platform they were building,” said Johnston. “We are excited to join the highly regarded existing and new shareholders to build on Giraffe’s strong foundations.”
