Joonko, a New York and Tel Aviv, Israel-based automated sourcing platform focused solely on underrepresented candidates, announced that it raised $25 million in Series B funding.
The round was led by Insight Partners, with support from Target Global and existing investors Kapor Capital and Vertex Ventures Israel.
The round was joined by highly influential diversity and inclusion leaders also on the Joonko Advisory Board, including Bernard Coleman (Gusto), Nicole Cuellar-Lopez (Etsy), Samuel Tam (Visa), Rachel Williams (Motley Fool), Mikeaela Ann-Smith (Chainalysis) and Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor (Artico Search).
With the funding, Joonko is looking to increase the headcount by introducing its U.S. co-headquarters in New York, NY, alongside its existing headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel. With US-based businesses representing 100% of Joonko customers, the company is doubling down on its U.S. presence with plans to grow its headcount by 70% by the end of the year.
“While many companies rely on referrals to fill open roles, the data shows this can lead to a homogeneous workforce. As a woman in tech, I saw this as a major roadblock to hiring underrepresented talent,” shares llit Raz, founder, and CEO of Joonko. “Joonko puts the spotlight on the overlooked — including'silver medalist candidates’ who made it to the final stages at top companies but didn’t get the job. By combining a world-class talent pool with AI-powered software, we’ve become a must-have recruiting tool. Today’s funding will allow us to expand access even further, so we can change the makeup of companies everywhere.”
As part of today's announcement, Joonko welcomes Albrey Brown as General Manager of the United States and Vice President of Strategy.
Company: Joonko Diversity Ltd.
Raised: $25.0M
Round: Series B
Funding Month: September 2022
Lead Investors: Insight Partners
Additional Investors: Target Global, Kapor Capital, Vertex Ventures Israel, Bernard Coleman, Nicole Cuellar-Lopez, Samuel Tam, Rachel Williams, Mikeaela Ann-Smith, and Mercedes Chatfield-Taylor
Company Website: https://joonko.co/
Software Category: Recruiting Software
About the Company: Joonko is the only automated sourcing platform targeting underrepresented candidates exclusively. Joonko's talent ecosystem enables talent acquisition managers to add pre-qualified diverse talent to the top of their talent pipeline and exchange silver medalist candidates. Joonko is developing complex algorithms to match candidates with skill-relevant, open job opportunities from the candidate pool's participating companies. In-house NLP (natural language processing) models enable a high correlation of personalized matching between candidates and open positions. In addition, the company is developing deep learning models that will allow us to identify marginalized communities and retain 100% underrepresented candidates. Joonko's Zero-touch technology matches candidates' skills and experience to relevant open positions at its +120 partnering companies. Companies such as Adidas, PayPal, Amex, Booking.com, Intuit, and many more are among Joonko's clients who successfully manifest their D&I commitments through Joonko's solution.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/marijabutkovic/2022/09/13/joonko-raises-25-million-in-series-b-to-empower-businesses-to-hire-underrepresented-candidates/