Curated Intel from the Talent Tech Industry
September 2-8, 2024:
• Trading equity for airtime: Gig platform Airtasker USA raises $9.75 million in media capital;
• Finding a pearl: As remote working keeps rolling, Oyster raises $59M Series D at $1.2B valuation;
• Looking for “AI teammates”: Mayfield devotes $100M to AI entrepreneur-in-residence program;
• Investing with people: Syelo Ventures launches to deploy talent leaders in startups for equity;
• Cooling job market calls for Fed action: July 2024 JOLTS Report delivers unwelcome news.
PLUS
Get both worldclass content and business-building connections at TAtech Europe & The EMEA Job Board Forum. Register right now for the only conference in the EMEA market that is specifically designed both for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and to accelerate the bottom-line growth of their enterprises. Why the rush? Because the conference will be held September 17-19, 2024 in Paris at Cercle National des Armées, and it has a limited seating capacity. So, register today and accelerate the success your company achieves, today, tomorrow and into the future!
Airtasker USA raises $9.75 million in media capital
Australian B2C talent platform Airtasker announced that its US operating company, Airtasker USA has raised a combined USD 9.75 million in media capital from American audio company, iHeartMedia and Spanish-language content and media company, TelevisaUnivision. The partnership with TelevisaUnivision will provide Airtasker with USD 4.75 million in advertising inventory in exchange for a 17.1% equity stake in Airtasker USA. At the same time, the strategic multi-year partnership with iHeart will provide Airtasker with USD 5.0 million in advertising inventory in exchange for a 4-year convertible note with a 5.0% coupon. Airtasker’s alignment with both iHeart and TelevisaUnivision builds on a global media partnership strategy and previously announced partnership with Channel 4 in the UK as well as recent Australian partnerships with oOh!media and ARN Media.
As remote working keeps rolling, Oyster raises $59M Series D at $1.2B valuation
No one is putting the remote working genie back in the bottle. Which is good news for Oyster, a payroll and HR platform that specializes in distributed workforces — or “global employment” as its marketing paints it. The 2019-founded U.S. startup has just closed a $59 million Series D funding round led by Silver Lake Waterman. The new funding, which brings its total raised to date to $286 million, sees its valuation increase slightly — up to $1.2 billion versus the $1 billion it was valued at back in 2022 when it raised its $150 million Series C. This means Oyster has maintained its market value at a time when many other tech companies have been forced into down rounds, bucking a painful trend.
Mayfield allocates $100M to AI incubator modeled after its entrepreneur-in-residence program
Navin Chaddha, the leader and managing partner of 55-year-old VC firm Mayfield Fund, has a penchant for approaching venture investing in a way that deviates slightly from other established firms. When Mayfield raised a $955 million fund last year, Chaddha told TechCrunch the firm doesn’t need a multi-billion-dollar fund because “copying somebody else is strategy for disaster, strategy for failure.” The firm is again trying to do something that it sees as unique. On Wednesday, Mayfield said it is launching AI Garage, a $100 million initiative for ideation-stage founders interested in building “AI teammate” companies. AI Garage wants to distinguish itself from accelerators such as YC or pre-seed programs like Sequoia’s Arc or Greylock’s Edge by modeling the effort on its entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR) experience. For the past 40 years, Mayfield Fund has hired one or two EIRs each year and helped them turn a raw concept into a new, fundable company. With the new program, Mayfield plans to scale and formalize its EIR program by welcoming up to five aspiring founders into its office every six months.
Syelo Ventures launches to deploy talent leaders in startups for equity
Today we hard pivoted Syelo into Syelo Ventures. A community of the world's greatest talent professionals who collectively invest in early stage startups, but our investment is unlike any other. Syelo invests in startups by deploying fully-embedded Talent Leaders into their company for ZERO cost - in short we trade People services for sweat equity. This offering makes us the only recruiting service that is truly mission and incentive aligned for Founders. In a space full of charlatans Syelo ensures that your long term success is our success and we're willing to bet on it.
July 2024 JOLTS Report: Unwelcome News
The labor market is no longer cooling down to its pre-pandemic temperature… it’s dropped below it. At this point, nobody — and certainly not policymakers at the Federal Reserve — should want the labor market to get any cooler. The hires rate ticked back up after a weak June report, though it’s still drifting slowly downward. Fortunately, layoffs remain low by historic standards. Overall, this report represents the exact kind of unwelcome news from the labor market that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently warned of. The labor market is past moderation and trending toward deterioration. The Federal Reserve has indicated that it has shifted some attention away from inflation and toward the health of the labor market, which is good, but it needs to take action soon.
The Extraordinary Value Proposition of TAtech Europe
Get both worldclass content and business-building connections at TAtech Europe & The EMEA Job Board Forum. Register right now for the only conference in the EMEA market that is specifically designed both for job board and talent technology company CEOs, their direct reports and rising stars and to accelerate the bottom-line growth of their enterprises. Why the rush? Because the conference will be held September 17-19, 2024 in Paris at Cercle National des Armées, and it has a limited seating capacity. Whether your company is a niche or general job board, aggregator, talent marketplace, online classifieds business, programmatic platform, chatbot, conversational AI solution, ATS, recruitment marketing solution, CRM platform, interviewing or assessment system or talent technology consultancy, this event will supercharge your sales and your profits. So, register today and accelerate the success your company achieves, today, tomorrow and into the future!