Plum, a revolutionary talent assessment platform, recently announced that it has raised $6 million ($8 million CAD) in a growth funding round led by Pearson Ventures, the corporate venture capital arm of Pearson, the world’s leading learning company. Other new investors, including JFF Ventures and Strada Education Network, also backed the round. Existing investors, Export Development Canada (EDC), Real Ventures, BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund, EduLab Capital Partners, and Impact Engine, have also participated in the capital raised.
The fresh capital will help the company boost sales, marketing and product development to accelerate growth.
Founded in 2012 by Caitlin MacGregor, Plum offers talent assessment software designed to help organizations hire, grow, and retain employees. Using psychometric data and artificial intelligence (AI), the platform enables firms to match people with positions, quantify job fit, improve hire quality, identify potential, provide personalized career insights, and strengthen their teams. It uses objective data to measure and match human potential to job needs, enhancing talent decisions across the employee lifecycle.
Speaking about the capital raised, Co-founder & CEO of Plum, Caitlin MacGregor, said:
At Plum, we know that when people flourish, business thrives. Our investors are focused on the innovation that ensures companies are ready for the ever-changing world of work while keeping a watchful eye on how the quality of work connects the employee to the employer. Building on our 100 per cent ARR growth year-over-year, these funds will help us boost sales, marketing and product development to accelerate growth and further Plum’s positive impact.
The startup reveals people’s talents with a single psychometric assessment that measures personality, social intelligence and problem-solving ability. While job titles, experience and education merely show what a person has done in the past, talents can predict what someone can achieve in the future.
Commenting on the investment, Vice President of Pearson Ventures, Pedro Vasconcellos, said:
We are excited by the innovation that Plum is bringing to the Talent Management space, mainly their focus on connecting individuals to the right opportunities where they’ll thrive. We are pleased to support Plum in its next growth phase and look forward to exploring various collaboration opportunities with them.
Principal Analyst and Founder of WorkTech, George LaRocque, added; Our recent global research shows that talent assessments of all kinds are being added to companies’ Work Tech stacks more than any other categories, reinforcing the importance of having the right HR technology such as Plum in place to assess, engage, and support workers.
In 2019, Plum had raised $4.2 million in a seed funding round led by Real Ventures, a Venture Capitalist firm dedicated to future-focused startups that create new categories. Other investors participated in this round, including SAP.iO, BDC Capital’s Women in Technology Venture Fund, and Impact Engine.
