Ukrainian HRtech startup Hirio got started last February with an idea to transform remote hiring: a no-code platform that allows managers to design and automate the applicant funnel for mass recruitment teams, such as supermarket chains. Little did they know the pandemic would make the product in high demand, they’d sign their first client without a line of code and see revenue within five months. Now, not a year later, the company says it is near profitability. To grow “more aggressively” in international markets, Hirio has raised a modest pre-seed round of €400,000. According to co-founder and CTO Artem Dudinskyi, the Kiev-based company is “primarily disrupting the US market of over 70 million low-skilled workers, where companies still use Excel to streamline their hiring process.” Dudinskyi and CEO Kostya Miska closed the round in five days. The investment was led by a Pipedrive crew that includes the three unicorn co-founders and three former employees — even the very first one, Elar Nellis. Nellis is now co-founder of LIFT99, a Kiev-based startup hub that acted as fundraising facilitator for Hirio’s round. LIFT99 wants to bring global venture capital into the country and is starting to use its network to make funding connections with local startups. The hub’s CEO Tanya Chaikovska commented: “It is extremely sad to see how early stage Ukrainian startups are being undervalued and removed from the investment radars of international angel investors, whereas international expertise is exactly what is needed to have these products take off and conquer the rest of the world.”
Photo: Co-founders Kostya Miska and Artem Dudinskyi
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