Online recruiter Jobbio adds 25 jobs with new funding

Balderton chief Barry Maloney joins board as company gears up for international expansion

Online recruitment platform Jobbio is set to add 25 jobs after it secured €1.5 million in funding from investors.

The new jobs will be located in Dublin, London and New York, with the majority of the new employment in Ireland. It will essentially double the headcount at the firm, which was established by Irish brothers, Stephen and John Quinn.

The funding round is being led by Taggia, a fund run by Balderton Capital founder Barry Maloney, with participation by Grafton Group chairman Michael Chadwick, European investor and entrepreneur Nicole Junkermann and members of the Smurfit family.

Mr Maloney is also joining the Jobbio board.

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The news comes only months after the firm said it planned to ramp up its international expansion in the wake of a €1 million funding round. On that occasion, the seed capital was raised through the AIB Seed Capital Fund, MXC Capital, Enterprise Ireland and private investment.

"We're adding 15,000 users a month," said Stephen Quinn. There's a demand for this, to move away from the traditional recruitment model."

Launched in 2013, Jobbio allows jobseekers to connect privately with companies they want to work for. Both jobseekers and companies can set up profiles, with candidates marketing their skills through the “live bio”, which is a mixture of text, images, videos and links. Companies can use the profiles to showcase their firms and opportunities.

The company said it has connected 1,600 top brands in Ireland, UK and US with more than 200,000 job seekers. Among the brands advertising on Jobbio are eBay, Ryanair, Uber, Unilever, PayPal and AirBnB. The latest to sign up is online marketplace Etsy.

The company has already expanded to London and New York, with 400 brands in the UK and 200 in the US.

Mr Quinn said the funding would allow the company to expand its operations in London and the US.

“Our strategy is always to folllow our customers,” he said, adding that it was when the firm saw jobs being posted for outside Ireland that it decided to move into the London jobs market.

“Then we started to see jobs appearing in New York. There are opportunities appearing everywhere,” he said.

The plan for now is to refine its current operations before looking at further expansion. New partnerships will also come in the future.

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist