Kochi: Deepu Xavier and Jyotis KS, who have worked with various IT disciplines for over 15 years, have seen the problems companies face while hiring. Hence, when they decided to take the entrepreneurial path, they knew what to sell – a platform that made the mundane job of recruiting easier. Thus, Zappyhire was born. Founded by the duo in 2018, the Kochi-based startup helps more than 50 clients with its AI-powered recruitment platform. After successfully closing two funding rounds, the company appears to be on a promising path with an ambitious business development plan.
It all started with Infy
Jyothis, from Kulancheri in Ernakulam district, and Xavier, from Chertala in Alappuzha, met in 2010 when they were with Infosys. The two then parted ways as they both took on bigger roles at other companies, but were never able to keep in touch. These two friends entered the entrepreneurial stage with their experience in the field of artificial intelligence, finance and management. Jyotis, who moved to Cognizant from Infosys, worked as CEO of CogniCor, a Spain-based conversational AI company, before founding Zappyhire. After stints at Infosys and Bosch, Xavier was the lead product manager for the Java programming language at Oracle before starting his career.
When we were working at our previous companies, one of our common challenges was around recruitment. Companies spend a lot of time on the endless hiring process. Xavier told Onmanorama about the origins of their company.
Zappyhire had a humble beginning with only three employees including the founders. Now this team has 46 members. The company is based at the Kerala Starup Mission Campus in Kalamassery and now follows a remote work culture. The company made its early fortune through its partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank, which is still going strong. The testimony of this banking giant says that using Zappyhire, he was able to hire about 1,100 candidates across the country with a three-person team in three months. The company’s client line includes ESAF Small Finance Bank, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Hedge and CareStack.
What does Zappyhire do?
The company follows the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and earns its revenue through subscriptions. It offers a full-fledged artificial intelligence (AI)-based platform that helps its clients make the recruitment process easier and save resources and time. The Zappyhire platform automates a company’s entire hiring process—from job application creation to offer letter issuance and onboarding—by aligning with existing processes.
The platform automatically screens and ranks candidates from hundreds of applications using a semantic resume parser and AI-powered video interviewing. With its database, the platform analyzes a candidate’s behavioral and language skills and the likelihood of joining and staying with a company. It also conducts robotic interviews in the early stages of recruitment.
We never filter any candidates. The final decision on employment rests with the recruiter. We provide maximum data points about a candidate which makes it easier for a recruiter. The system helps recruiters from writing job descriptions to issuing recommendation letters to a potential employee. It can also sense a candidate’s willingness or reluctance to take up a job based on their job offer. Any company can also configure our system without compromising their hiring practices.
According to its founders, the Zappyhire platform is useful not only for recruiters but also for business leaders as well as candidates. It helps business leaders and C-levels track their recruiting performance, get insights and recommendations tailored to the organization, and improve their recruiting ROI. Provides clear communication and updates to candidates throughout the hiring process.
Pandemic profit
Zappyhire is one of those businesses that came out of the covid quarantine. “Before Covid, automation in recruitment or digital recruitment was just a ‘nice to have’ feature for companies. With the pandemic lockdown, it has become a “must” and digital recruitment has become the norm. “It helped us to be accepted,” Xavier said.
Financing and expansion
Last November, the company raised Rs 3.71 crore from Kerala angel network and Alex K. Babu, founder and CMD, Hedge Finance Limited. The round also saw participation from strategic investors such as Shahab Mohammad, former founder of Freshservice (Freshdesk), Nawas Miran, Chairman, Eastern Condiments Pvt. Ltd, Dr. MI Sahadulla, Rajesh Nair – Partner, EY, Chairman & CEO, KIMS, and K Paul Thomas, Founder, ESAF Group of Social Enterprises. The funding round saw more than four Zappyhire clients become investors, including ESAF and Hedge Securities. Xavier said that this has convinced them of the company’s potential in recruitment automation. In January 2020, the company raised nearly Rs 70 million.
The country has begun the process of the next round of funding as part of its plan to expand trade to the United States by next year.
