The Berlin-based HR startup Zenjob has just closed a financing round with a total of €8 million led by Acton Capital Partners and joined by swiss early-stage investor Redalpine, the existing seed investor Atlantic Labs, and others. This round completes an earlier initial investment of €3 million in March, now extended to a total of €8 million.
Founded in January 2016, Zenjob is a new type of staffing agency that arose as a response to the growing demand for flexibility and digitization in HR. The young company already employs more than 1,500 students and serves over 450 businesses in Berlin alone. Most of their B2B customers are in retail, logistics and hospitality and include businesses such as Hard Rock Café, Tesla, Sheraton Hotels and Gerry Weber.
With Zenjob, companies can book flexible staff easily without administrative hassle – all candidates are employed by and insured through Zenjob. Clients simply receive an invoice for the hours worked, including a 25% commission for Zenjob. The startup ensures the quality of its student candidate base through a thorough application process and continuous “on-the-job” reviews.
For students, Zenjob provides flexibility and variety. Jobs are offered in real time via the app and are tailored to individual student profiles. Payments are made immediately after completion of the job. The lean administration model also offers fair wages: students receive at least €10 per hour, above average for the jobs offered, such as waiter or office manager.
With the new capital, Zenjob will mainly invest in its technology and begin a domestic roll out starting with Hamburg, Munich and Cologne.
Harald Nieder, the Managing Partner at Red Alpine stated: “The strong growth so far shows Zenjob’s fit with both students and employers. The sophisticated technology that’s at the core of Zenjob’s product allows to minimize the traditionally heavy admin burden on both ends and guarantees fast and smooth matching of jobs with suitable students. Equally important, Zenjob has very quickly established scalable processes for quality assurance.”
Fritz Trott, the CEO and co-founder of Zenjob explains: “In this very moment, millions of people are underpaid and doing a job they don’t like. This is what we want to change with Zenjob. More than half of German students need a side-job and with Zenjob, students can work flexibly alongside their studies. We pay competitive salaries starting at € 10 per hour, with an average of € 11.50 per hour. No other company will be able to provide external staff faster or better-qualified than Zenjob. Our technology enables us to serve requests within a few minutes, and our customers experience excellent service through our digital quality assurance.”
