Flexa Careers, a platform aiming to bring transparency to the hiring market, has raised a 拢2.3 million seed round to expand its global reach.
Founded in early 2020 by Molly Johnson-Jones, Maurice O鈥橞rien and Tim Leppard, the platform now has over 450,000 users while more than 150 companies headquartered around the world have been approved to feature on the platform.
The round was led by Ada Ventures and joined by Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, angel syndicate HERmesa and a wide group of angel investors.聽
Flexa says it has flipped the hiring process on its head, enabling companies to showcase what their working environments offer when it comes to flexibility and benefits, and be discovered by candidates who want to know up-front how the company operates and get a transparent look at what its working policies are before applying for a role.聽
Flexa vets and verifies companies through a two-stage benchmarking process: looking at everything from their approach to working location, through to what benefits are on offer, and then surveying how their current employees feel about working there.聽聽
Companies are then approved to showcase their jobs on the platform and people can filter opportunities by these criteria to find their perfect working environment in seconds.聽
鈥淯ntil now, there has been nowhere to go to find out which companies offer the working environment that someone wants or needs鈥�, said Johnson-Jones.聽
鈥淭his means candidates either have to ask during the interview process – with which the majority of people are uncomfortable, and leads to hours in wasted applications and interviews if it鈥檚 not the right fit – or, worse again, accept a job and hope for the best.聽
鈥淚n the modern working world, that鈥檚 just not good enough. Flexa Careers solves this problem by only featuring companies who meet a certain standard of flexibility and who are willing to be upfront about what they offer.鈥�
Flexa Careers has already been used by candidates across 70 countries, but their core audience is centred in the UK and Ireland, where it originally launched.聽
The company was inspired by Johnson-Jones鈥檚 experience of asking a former employer to work from home one day per week to help accommodate a chronic health condition.聽
Within 10 days of making the request, she claims she was sacked; her subsequent job hunt was fraught with anxiety, with few employers offering clarity on their home working or flexible hours policies.聽
鈥淭he world of work is changing rapidly and we鈥檙e seeing people demand more when it comes to how and where they work. Our user numbers have sky-rocketed month on month since launch, as people are no longer willing to put up with inflexible working environments. In a tight labour market, engaged and progressive employers are winning talent by offering more choice and autonomy – these are the companies embracing the Flexa model,鈥� said Johnson-Jones.
鈥淚鈥檓 thrilled that we鈥檝e been able to raise this funding, which means we can help more people access the information that they truly care about during their job search, and get more companies Flexified. I鈥檓 also really proud that over 50% of our investors in this round are women and I can鈥檛 wait to work with this esteemed group to grow the business.鈥�
Check Warner, partner at Ada Ventures, will now join the Flexa Careers board.
鈥淎t Ada we look for companies which could reach one billion people and we believe Flexa can change the way that billions of people find the right job for them. In the last two years there has been a fundamental shift in the way people feel about their jobs, the type of work they want to do, and how they want to do it,鈥� he said.聽
鈥淭he best talent is fought over by companies – yet it鈥檚 still virtually impossible to really understand what it鈥檚 like to work at a company before accepting an offer. Flexa is changing that. Flexa鈥檚 uniquely transparent audit and certification process ensures that companies who say they offer flexibility, really do so.聽
鈥淔lexa should be the first place candidates go to research workplaces and the place that hiring managers go to share the benefits they offer. We are pleased to be investing in a team with such a clear mission to make work accessible to everyone.鈥�