OfferZen, a tech talent marketplace in South Africa, announced it raised €4.5 million (R81m) in Series A growth funding from Base Capital, a South African investment company.
This is the first round of funding raised by OfferZen since its founding in 2015.
OfferZen co-founder and chief executive Philip Joubert said: “Right now tech hiring is growing at a rate well beyond our wildest expectations.
“We’re seeing record numbers of both developers and companies signing up to use the OfferZen platform.
“We experienced a 29 percent increase in placements between the third and fourth quarter of 2021 alone.”
“Tech hiring came to a near standstill in the first half of 2020 due to Covid.
Since then we’ve seen a huge acceleration in the market – companies are now raising far more capital than they were pre-pandemic, investing more in technology and subsequently hiring much faster.
“Access to top tech talent has become the bottleneck for many companies and we’re in a position to help companies solve that.”
Co-founded by brothers Philip and Malan Joubert, and Brett Jones, OfferZen expanded to the Netherlands in April 2020 after acquiring TryCatch, a recruitment tech start-up based in Amsterdam.
The company said it would invest in the local tech community and grow its operations, product and growth teams as it deepens its expansion into Europe, with the aim to expand to two additional countries in 2022.
OfferZen focuses on building an engaged developer community through events, tech community sponsorships, content and developer reports. Developers are accepted onto OfferZen when they are ready to find a job, which means companies access developers who are ready-to-hire.
“We’re aiming to offer South African and European companies the biggest pool of high-quality developers and the best experience for hiring them.
“With this investment, the massive growth in venture capital raised and the subsequent explosion of demand for tech talent, we believe the timing is right for us to double down on our vision,” Joubert said.
BUSINESS REPORT