Is it difficult to raise money? How long did it take? What milestones does my startup have to meet? What do investors have to understand about my company?
We interviewed founders and investors involved in successful VC rounds at very early stages of their startups. Click below on each date to learn from them.
🇳🇴 Fairsight, developing what they call an intelligent assessment platform for job interviews and recruiting, raised $1.9 million pre-seed in a round backed by Sondo, Futurum VC and Skyfall Ventures.
Here’s Kjetil from Sondo, one of Fairsight’s investors:
How is Fairsight different than dozen other HR screening tools?
- In one word, I’d say it comes down to quality. When talking to potential customers, we quickly realized that the assessment tools they were using, mainly were used to “check a box” and not to actually guide a recruitment process. Unless the tools are of high enough quality, which very few out there actually are, recruiters will continue to be guided by their gut, or maybe even worse, be guided by a tool that is not accurate and prone to biases. That leads to worse and less fair hires, benefitting no-one.
- Fairsight is founded by two psychologists with decades of experience from talent assessment, and our belief is Fairsight has the necessary quality to take talent assessment to the next level. It’s simply more than just another HR screening tool.
It’s an early stage deal – how much % is conviction and how much is data?
- The product was not live when we committed to investing, so I’d say it’s 100% conviction. Partly conviction about the opportunity, but mainly conviction around the founding team. The founders previously bootstrapped a company in the same industry and sold it for roughly €100M, and when they wanted to do it again just at bigger scale, it was an easy vision to lean into.
For how long have you followed Fairsight’s work?
- We first met the team this spring, after being introduced by a founder we both knew fairly well.
What have they accomplished since then that got you in 100%?
- We committed just a few weeks after our initial meeting. The founders’ references were stellar, and we had them talk to a few potential buyers of their product, and they all confirmed Fairsight’s approach made a lot of sense and solved problems they couldn’t solve today. We were 100% in fairly quickly in other words, and since then they’ve continued to prove that customers really want this.
What are their next milestones?
- The company now has great traction in the local market. But to be able to show that this product is the potential game-changer we think it could be, they should prove they are the preferred assessment tool for recruiters in several European markets.
How big can this be?
- Very early to say, but there’s a very large number of recruitments being made each year, and I still haven’t met a single person not caring about making the best possible hire. Another interesting aspect here is that if you properly assess candidates, this is a very good foundation for upskilling/reskilling and supporting talent after they are hired. In other words, many ways to grow into a very big company.
What has to happen in order for Fairsight to become a fund returner?
- Many ways this can happen, but the most probable is they become a market leader in several large European markets.
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