Introducing Jobandtalent
The workforce-as-a-service platform disrupting the modern labour market is one of the latest additions to Kinnevik’s Growth Portfolio.
Read the Interview with Juan Urdiales, CEO and Co-founder of Jobandtalent.
Tell us about yourself and why you founded Jobandtalent?
I started my first business when I was at university back in 2005 finishing my MBA. I started a quite innovative fashion retail business that gave the customers the opportunity to design in a computer that we had at the stores their own creations, which were then made in less than three hours by our dressmakers and seamstresses located in the store premises.
Unfortunately, this business was strongly hit by the 2008 crisis that forced me to sell it to a more established retail chain. During that time I saw a lot
of my friends and family out of jobs, desperately looking for any job opportunity. However, I struggled at that same time to find candidates for my stores. This situation helped me realize that there was a complete mismatch in the labor market. This is the main reason I decided to start Jobandtalent with the purpose of improving the way people find jobs and how companies connect with their workers.
"This situation helped me realize that there was a complete mismatch in the labor market."
How will you use the capital from the latest funding round?
We will concentrate in three main areas:
1. New key market. We will launch the US market, where we believe that there is a great opportunity for a platform like Jobandtalent.
2. Consolidate existing markets. We will strengthen our position into the existing markets by investing further in Marketing and Sales.
3. Product and tech investment. We are growing our tech team to improve the user experience for employers and workers by adding more functionalities into the platform. We have plans to add some embedded finance and edutech products in the future which would improve even more the satisfaction levels in our marketplace.
Why did you choose to partner with Kinnevik?
Firstly, they are a highly reputable long term investor. Felipe and I have been running Jobandtalent since we founded it more than ten years ago and see ourselves here for the long term. Adding for this phase of the journey an investor that thinks as long term as we do was crucial for us. We could see how they have invested in many companies that have moved from the private to the public world and have hold their ownership in those companies for the long term. Additionally, we know that Kinnevik is an ESG-centric
investor, and we saw a lot of alignment on our mission as a company and our strong belief on having an impact in the labor market. Jobandtalent is helping hundreds of thousands of workers each year to get jobs and better working conditions and it is critical to partner with investors that believe in our social impact.
What’s next for Jobandtalent and where do you see the business in 10 years?
Looking more to where the business will be in 10 years time we should really take into consideration that the labor market is changing rapidly worldwide due to influencing factors such as AI or Web 3.0 and we want to ensure that we make our contribution to optimally prepare our workers for this and to be able to accompany them ideally throughout the entire career cycle, not only in helping them finding a job, but also helping them in other key matters like financial support and planning, education and reskilling, etcetera.
But we also want to enable companies to better and more efficiently control and engage with their workforce in terms of time tracking, shift tools and analytics. We firmly believe that the demand for one-stop solutions will increase. Jobandtalent is in a unique position and we believe we are working on the right initiatives that will make our mission a reality.