Talent assessment platform Bryq announced today the closing of its €1.2 million seed funding round by BigPi Ventures, a seed-stage and technology-transfer €45 million fund.
Founded in 2014 in Greece, Bryq offers a science-backed talent assessment platform to help companies remove bias from hiring and meet employer demand by enabling companies to hire for the specific skills required for each role.
“Our experience has shown that the one common denominator in all successful companies has been great talent – Bryq has impressed us with its ability to support talent decisions, providing its customers with a rare competitive advantage,” said Aristos Doxiadis, Partner, Big Pi Ventures. “The recent global crisis and upheaval in the employment market make Bryq an essential tool for survival”.
The company, which launched its platform last October after two years of research, development, and validation, intends to use the funds to grow its reach and further refine its product offering.
“The effects of the COVID-19 crisis have highlighted the systemic barriers faced by well-qualified candidates, who are struggling to get a foot in the door while companies are struggling to develop and implement bias-free hiring processes,” said Markellos Diorinos, CEO, Bryq. “This investment round from BigPi will allow Bryq to make simple, bias-free hiring available to more companies.”
According to Byrq, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, corporate jobs attracted around 250 resumes on average. The impact of the pandemic has led to a sharp increase in job seekers, with companies required to review an even larger number of resumes, spending no more than an average 7 seconds on each. Faced with a broken hiring process making it difficult to assess a candidate’s fit for a specific role, almost half of the new hires are expected to fail within the first 18 months in their new role while qualified candidates are being passed on.
“Companies across the US are accelerating their Diversity and Inclusion efforts as part of their renewed commitment to removing barriers to jobs for qualified candidates,” said Rob Sharkey, Senior Vice President, Sales, Bryq. “We are excited to do our part in helping more companies reach their recruitment and retention goals in an efficient and effective way.”
With its Software-as-a-Service platform, Bryq helps companies improve and remove bias from their hiring process. It gives CEOs, HR professionals and hiring managers access to objective data about peoples’ skills and personality, helping them make better, faster, and bias-free hiring decisions.
A chatbot-based assessment with a short 20-minute requirement, Bryq has an industry-leading 91% completion rate while being positively rated by over 82% of the assessment participants, serving companies in over 15 countries.
