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£3 million raised to fund global adoption of iProfile

November 6, 2007

We are pleased to announce that we recently raised £3 million through leading private equity providers to finance the global adoption of our online CV, the iProfile – which is revolutionising the way people interact with the job market.

This investment has been fuelled by the success of the business. In the last year alone SkillsMarket has seen a rapid period of growth - both our staff count and revenues have increased by over 50%. The number of people with an iProfile has also risen to over 2 million, representing 15% of UK professionals. Most of the UK’s biggest recruiters are also compatible with the iProfile, including Reed, Spring and Alexander Mann.

This is the second round of capital raising that SkillsMarket has completed in a year with the value put on the company increasing by 55% between these two rounds of financing. The £3 million investment will now drive the initial stages of an aggressive expansion of the iProfile.

Funds raised are being invested to:

• Increase uptake of iProfile across all professional services sectors
• Launch a new online portal, which will add advanced Web 2.0 functionality for candidates
• Expand the international presence, including the roll-out of the service across Europe and the USA in the coming months, plus the opening of an office in Australia to serve individuals and recruitment companies in the Asia Pacific region

The iProfile allows jobseekers to present their details in a detailed and structured format online. In contrast to the paper CV, this format enables recruiters to quickly and easily create precise candidate short-lists using a range of searchable criteria such as skills, job role, level of experience or current availability for work.

A candidate only has one iProfile and any updates made to it are instantly transmitted to the databases of all the iProfile Compatible recruitment companies with whom they have previously registered. As a result, iProfile Compatible recruitment companies are benefiting from around 50% of their CV databases being up-to-date instead of the industry average, which is just 7-10%.

The iProfile initially took off in the IT staffing market but usage has now spread to the point where approximately 40% of iProfiles are now in professions outside of the IT market such as accountancy and engineering. Some recruiters are now beginning to use the iProfile in the permanent as well as the temporary staffing market.

Rick Bacon, Chief Executive of SkillsMarket, comments: “Although the Internet and e-mail has revolutionized the recruitment market, we have only really scratched the surface of the efficiency gains that e-commerce can deliver to recruitment companies.”

“Delivering structured and up-to-date information on candidates to recruitment executives was once seen as the holy grail of the industry. Days of fruitless CV sifting and cold calling can be avoided. Recruitment companies that have adopted iProfiles are seeing productivity improvements for their consultants of between 20% to 40%.”

“Our continued investment in the iProfile will enable us to provide people with the ultimate online solution for presenting their CV information in a way that will maximize their chances of finding work.”

The £3 million investment is being funded by private equity providers, Foresight Venture Partners and Octopus Ventures, and a number of private investors. These include Richard Koch, co-founder of LEK, the leading management consultancy, and a major investor in Betfair and other highly successful Internet companies.

Roger Graham OBE, SkillsMarket’s Chairman, said: “This funding round has been a huge endorsement of our business model and will take SkillsMarket to the next level. The vision is for the iProfile to finally make the paper CV a thing of the past.”

To find out more, contact SkillsMarket's sales team on 020 7025 0555 or click here to email us.

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