An Estonian startup that helps people get tech jobs around the world has raised $2 million
The Tallinn-headquartered company - founded in June 2014 by Karoli Hindriks before gaining support from cofounders Ronald Hindriks (Karoli's brother) and Allan Mäeots - announced the funding round on Wednesday. Total investment in the company now stands at around $3 million (£2.2 million).
Jobbatical aims to match the skill sets and travel aspirations of tech and startup professionals with companies in search of talent. Companies list jobs on the platform and ambitious travel enthusiasts are invited to apply for them. The startup, which hails from the same country as Skype and WhatsApp, makes money by charging a commission on each successful hire.
"Silicon Valley and the other great technology hubs have developed in large part because of the steady stream of highly-skilled individuals they manage to attract," said Karoli Hindriks in a statement. "Our goal with Jobbatical is to help build the world's next generation of Silicon Valleys, from Lisbon to Kuala Lumpur and beyond, by removing geographical bias from hiring decisions, so that people are employed based on their skills, rather than their passports."
The company claims to have built up a talent pool of 30,000 people that are looking to relocate. Over its first year, 1,200 companies across 40 countries used Jobbatical. During the same time period, there were apparently 7,000 job applications and over 300 job matches.
Jobbatical said it will use the funding to further develop its product and improve the overall user experience. The company also wants to triple the size of its team, which is currently less than 10 people, according to CrunchBase. Specifically, it wants to hire more marketing people. Part of this will involve opening up a new office in Singapore to serve Southeast Asia, which is its fastest-growing destination.
On the day of the funding announcement, the company touted a PwC survey highlighting how 71% of millennials would like to work outside their own country over the course of their career.
Saul Klein, the cofounder of LoveFilm, SeedCamp, Kano, and a number of other companies, told Business Insider that this is the second startup he and his father have publicly backed with their new £45 million venture capital fund.
"We are interested in big themes and the future of work is a big theme," Klein said over the phone ahead of the announcement. "The way people work has changed. Apparently we're all going to have 11 jobs in our careers now. The notion you have the freedom and flexibility to experience another place, another city, another culture, and not just do that as a tourist, but earn a living while you're doing it, makes sense to me."
Klein added that he loves working with talented Estonians, pointing to his time at Skype where he worked for just over two years, climbing to VP in the process.