Bangalore-based e-recruitment platform, Belong secures $10 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital India. This investment round also saw participation from existing backer, Matrix Partners. Belong plans to use these funds for client expansion and product development through technology innovation.
Back in June 2015, Belong nabbed a sum of $5 million in Series A round led by Matrix Partners. Blume Ventures, and Snapdeal Co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal along with redBus Co-founder Phanindra Sama also participated in the funding round. Since its first fund-raise in June 2015, the company says to have doubled its mid-market and enterprise customers.
Speaking of the present model and future ambitions, Chief Executive Vijay Sharma said,
We now have clear validation that our product is working. Talented candidates today are overwhelmed by the ‘spray-and-pray’ tactics of traditional recruiting. Not only does it annoy them, but it also leads to poor engagement and conversions for recruiters. We’ve expanded from early adopters into a much larger base of clients across industries. We’re still largely focused on technology hiring, but we’re also expanding into sales and marketing hiring.
Belong’s portfolio includes impressive clients such as Cisco, Amazon, UnitedHealth Group, EY and Thoughtworks among 80+ others. The company recently launched ‘BelongExperts’, a product which directly connects consumers with their end needs. For eg., it links companies with specialist recruiters for executive hirings while directly with candidates for niche roles. The product has already been opted by e-platforms including Uber and LendingKart, who are among the first 20 clients for BelongExperts.
Currently, the startup has 85 employees and aims to add another 15 over the next 18 months. Apart from the investment, the company has also seized a potential teammate in the form of Gautam Mago, MD at Sequoia Capital India. He will now join Belong as a part of the board of directors, along with Matrix Partners’ MD Tarun Davda.
While other hiring platforms are facing survival crisis due to lack of funds, Belong has bought a big hand here. Only within 18 months of its inception, recruitment start-up TalentPad decided to shut down in August 2015. Moreover, online classifieds platform Quikr had easily bagged Hiree due to the internal chaos going on at the company. Recruitment space seems to have a lot of scope, but only a great business model can stay for long.
