UK talent specialist search group, Inbeta, has just closed a successful seed round led by a host of former FTSE100 executives, bringing the business to a seven-figure valuation, just months after launching.
Inbeta, founded in 2020, is an executive talent specialist platform that leverages technology, social listening, data and human science to build a fairer executive search practice, with the aim of rethinking approaches to recruitment that will challenge corporate bias.
Using pioneering technology, Inbeta has the vision to improve objectivity within the hiring process, using technology and data to help companies better understand and successfully mitigate the risks associated with leadership hiring. Failed leadership hiring is costly to businesses, and poor recruitment decisions have the potential to expose organisations to a financial hole. Corporate bias also results in far too many candidates being overlooked. Inbeta’s platform addresses this issue by better matching talent with open roles.
Inbeta operates in a three-stage process. First, there is the use of intelligence gathering to surface outstanding and/or overlooked talent. Secondly, the platform then defines the profile of shortlisted candidates by measuring crucial skills and behaviours. Lastly, the intelligence gathered informs a development stage, to ensure a successful recruitment transition.
With cutting-edge technology and an advanced aggregation of data and human science, Inbeta can analyse diverse, high calibre talents in real-time, and consider their objective potential to perform the role in question. Current industry best practices in matching talent still tend to be manual, desk-research-based, and subjective. Inbeta’s solution reduces implicit bias and unfairness and makes the decision an objective one.
The technology then continues through the onboarding process of recruitment, to improve the guarantee of new-employee satisfaction. Coupling technology and intelligence with integrated coaching, candidates undertake a tailored program that continues well beyond their start date and is designed to ensure their successful transition, integration and acceleration into the new organisation. To inform this process, Inbeta measures the cultural affinities and drivers of the candidate, the headhunter and the hiring manager to identify and address biases that may otherwise have gone unnoticed. This fosters cultural intelligence and different ways of thinking to further diversity and inclusion.
The end result is to develop a recruitment process that is more sustainable and delivers more diverse high-performing teams.
James Nash, Founder of Inbeta, said: “I’m thrilled to be taking Inbeta into the next stage of its growth, backed by leading minds in the world of business and professional development. We have a unique opportunity here to do that rare thing: make the world a better place while also creating a valuable business, both to our customers and to society at large. We’ve spent the last year assembling the technology and the team to ensure we get this right.”
Harriet Hounsell, Chief People Officer of consumer businesses including Nomad Foods, McDonald’s and Marks & Spencer; John Clarke, Chief Digital and Technology Officer of the Metropolitan Police and formerly CIO of Primark; Sean Gogarty, formerly Divisional CEO at Unilever; and Mark West, ex-CTO of JAB Luxury GmbH are among the shareholders of this game-changing business.
The funding, led by high-profile angel investors, including former board executives from Unilever, Primark, LandSec and JAB Luxury GmbH, will be used to accelerate the young company into the next stage of growth, and continue the development of a more equitable recruitment process that uses data to uncover and engage too-often overlooked talent.
Inbeta will also further its investment in expert coaches who will design and deliver bespoke programmes, using Inbeta’s intelligence to ensure that organisations and individuals thrive together. The company is driven by its strategy to compete on value by delivering better outcomes – financially, socially and culturally – for clients as they acquire and retain talent more ethically and efficiently.
