BrightHire Secures $20.5 Million Series B to Transform the Interview Process

Intelligent interview platform BrightHire has secured a $20.5M Series B to further accelerate the growth of their more equitable, faster approach to hiring. The Series B funding is led by 01A with participation from Index Ventures and Zoom Apps Fund and follows a recent $12.5M Series A led by Index Ventures a few months prior, in May 2021. It’s also supported by Ground Up Ventures, Haystack, and J Ventures.

“The challenges high-growth companies face when they have to hire fast are universal – how can you guarantee a fair process, consistently raise the bar on new talent, and provide an outstanding candidate experience? That’s why we built BrightHire. Hiring is too important to leave to chance.”

“It’s validating to find investors in seasoned operators, leaders that have scaled companies from 50 people to IPO,” says BrightHire CEO Ben Sesser. “The challenges high-growth companies face when they have to hire fast are universal – how can you guarantee a fair process, consistently raise the bar on new talent, and provide an outstanding candidate experience? That’s why we built BrightHire. Hiring is too important to leave to chance.”

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“When I was introduced to BrightHire, it was so obviously a product that would have made an enormous impact for me in the past. It shines a light into the black box that is the interview process, and that visibility changes a company for the better,” said Dick Costolo, co-founder and managing partner at 01 Advisors and former CEO of Twitter. “On a micro level, it’s improving each individual critical hiring decision, but on a macro level, it’s the fabric of an organization—the people make the company.”

Since raising their Series A just a few short months ago, the company has experienced rapid growth—4x revenue run rate growth, 3x customer count, and 37% month-over-month growth in interview volume. In a candidate’s market, being able to hire quickly and efficiently is essential to acquire the best talent. BrightHire enables teams to hire at speed without compromising on quality or fairness.

“There’s no decision more consequential for culture and performance than hiring. Companies that hire faster, smarter, and fairer gain a competitive advantage, and BrightHire has built the interviewing and hiring platform that leaders and managers desperately need to make that happen,” says advisor, operational psychologist, and author Adam Grant.

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“BrightHire’s Interview Intelligence platform is changing the hiring process and bringing much-needed rigor into hiring decisions,” says advisor, founder of Humu, and former SVP of People Operations at Google, Laszlo Bock. “It’s been amazing to watch them help customers reduce recruiter ramp time from months to weeks and reduce hiring time by 40%.”

This funding positions BrightHire to be the leader in this important space. The pandemic created an immediate pivot to digital solutions, many of which take humans out of hiring decisions. BrightHire provides an essential counterpoint: that people are still the most important ingredient to success, and finding the right people means creating a fair playing field. BrightHire’s consistent, rigorous, data-driven approach removes barriers that might otherwise arise from bias and lets candidates shine.

“It’s impossible to run an equitable process without structure; when decisions are based on subjective gut feelings instead of substance, and there’s no accountability,” says CEO Ben Sesser. “No PowerPoint training is going to solve for bias that runs rampant in a process like this. But that’s exactly what we’re here to fix.”

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