Interview Rocket, a Halifax startup that offers interview technology for recruiters and jobseekers, has landed more than $250,000 in funding from the First Angel Network, foreign investors and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
In an exchange of emails, CEO Craig Brown declined to reveal specifics of the funding other than to say it was above $250,000.
One-year-old Interview Rocket is a Software-as-a-Service recruitment aid that helps both recruiters and jobseekers simplify the interview process. Brown estimates recruiters save about $6 on wages and other costs for every dollar they spend using the recruiting tool. The service includes a feature called InterviewMe!, which uses a combination of social media and recordable video technology to help candidates get noticed by recruiters regardless of where the two parties are in the world.
Interview Rocket actually went through the funding process at the First Angel Network last summer. (The network of wealthy individual investors focused on tech investments in 2012 as another of its target companies was Dartmouth-based document-sharing software company TitanFile.) Brown has been unable to announce the investment until now as it took time for all the details of the funding round to be finalized.
In addition to FAN, Interview Rocket received investment from Cabot Technology Solutions, headed by Venkatesh Thyagarajan and Shibu Basheer, both of whom lived a number of years in Halifax and are now based in India.
“I hired Cabot to do some initial development work,” said Brown, adding they were introduced by a mutual contact in Halifax. “They became interested in the project as time went by, and decided to invest.”
Brown said the company is now working on new features that will increase the ease of use for both jobseekers and recruiters. Brown now employs a full-time and a part-time employee and has a number of people involved on various levels in several countries, including Cabot’s developers in India, a developer in Nova Scotia, a graphic designer and search engine optimization specialist in London and resellers in Australia and Wales.
“The funding we have received has allowed us to pursue opportunities in other industries as well,” said Brown in a statement. “We have been approached by a number of organizations in various industries looking for schedule independent video interviewing solutions. It turns out that video interviewing is not just for recruiters.”