Employers are facing a tough market for hiring and retaining talent as employees across the United States continue to leave their jobs at a record pace. As a result, a slew of Bay Area-based hiring platforms have received some massive investments over the last few weeks. Fountain, the latest San Francisco-based hiring platform to get a financial boost, announced Thursday that it raised $85 million in Series C financing.
The fresh raise comes at a time of significant growth for the company. Fountain gained strong momentum over the course of 2021, its revenue grew 220 percent year over year.
“The number of job openings for hourly workers exceeds supply, so companies need to gain any competitive hiring advantage they can. But there’s a ‘speed’ shortage when it comes to hiring workers,” Sean Behr, CEO of Fountain, said in an email to Built In. “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash can hire in a day, even in hours...so why do other companies, on average, take 36 days to hire?”
Fountain dwindles that number down to an average of eight days, according to Behr.
“There’s also a misconception that hiring will get easier once Covid is over. Unfortunately, hiring won’t get easier,” Behr continued. “New options for workers will ensure that the market for hourly workers will remain competitive.”
Fountain primarily caters to companies with high-volume hiring needs, that is, companies that receive more than 1,000 applications per position. Job candidates can apply to available positions on Fountain’s fully-automated mobile app, then hiring managers can grab a complete view of their applicant pool via Fountain’s dashboard.
All told, the hiring platform has helped companies process over 16 million applicants in the past 12 months alone, according to Fountain. The company serves over 250 customers, including leading fast food franchises like Chipotle.
“Coming out of the pandemic, talent acquisition and management has become mission critical and Fountain has emerged as a leading software solution for enterprises around the world,” Kyle Lui, partner at DCM, an investor in the round, said in a statement.
Following the latest raise, Fountain plans to expand its team. The company is now hiring for over 15 remote tech positions spanning its engineering, customer success and operations teams, to name a few.
Fountain has raised $118.9 million in venture capital financing to date, according to Crunchbase.
The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from B Capital Group and Mirae Asset Venture Investment, among others.
