HomeFundingLondon-based Flexa lands €2.7 million to bring transparency to the increasingly competitive...

London-based Flexa lands €2.7 million to bring transparency to the increasingly competitive global hiring market

The recruitment and hiring market is more competitive than ever before, and employees are demanding more respect and transparency throughout the process. The ways we work, right across the world, have drastically changed in a relatively short period of time and businesses need to keep up in order to continue to attract the best talent. 

Inspired to shake up the hiring market, London-based Flexa is on a mission to enable companies to showcase what their working environments truly offer when it comes to flexibility and benefits. These companies can then be easily discovered – and trusted – by candidates who want to know up-front how the company operates.

The female-led startup has just picked up €2.7 million in fresh funding to do so in a round led by Ada Ventures and joined by  Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, angel syndicate HERmesa, and a wide group of angel investors. Over 50% of the investors are women – reflecting a new wave of female investors supporting female entrepreneurship that the European startup scene has been crying out for. 

Flexa founder Molly Johnson-Jones, explained: “Until now, there has been nowhere to go to find out which companies offer the working environment that someone wants or needs. This 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’s not the right fit – or, worse again, accept a job and hope for the best. In the modern working world, that’s 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.”

Founded in early 2020 by Molly Johnson-Jones, Maurice O’Brien, and Tim Leppard, the startup was created after Molly’s own challenging experience with employer flexibility. After asking a former employer if she could work from home one day per week, to help accommodate a chronic health condition, Molly found herself made redundant. Her subsequent job hunt was fraught with anxiety, with few employers offering clarity on their home working or flexible hours policies. This approach, which leaves candidates disempowered and in the dark, prompted Molly, Maurice and Tim to create a better way of finding genuinely flexible companies.

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. 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. 

According to Flexa, 73% of candidates say flexibility is non-negotiable – so it’s clearly important that transparency on this is readily available. Flexa is enabling companies to build their brands as flexible, empowering employers, whilst increasing the discoverability of their vacancies and their ability to appeal to a more diverse audience. 

Already, the London-based company has over 450k users and more than 150 companies across the world that have been approved to feature on the platform. Further, the service has been used by candidates across 70 countries, but its core audience is centred in the UK and Ireland, where it originally launched. This funding will therefore be used to expand and solidify their global reach.

Molly added: “The world of work is changing rapidly and we’re 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.”

Check Warner, Partner at Ada Ventures and who will now join the Flexa Careers board, said: “At 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. The best talent is fought over by companies – yet it’s still virtually impossible to really understand what it’s like to work at a company before accepting an offer. Flexa is changing that. Flexa’s uniquely transparent audit and certification process ensures that companies who say they offer flexibility, really do so. Flexa 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.”

Patricia Allen
Patricia Allen
is the former Head of Content at EU-Startups. With a background in politics, Patricia has a real passion for how shared ideas across communities and cultures can bring new initiatives and innovations for the future.
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