UK-based workforce management startup Spotted Zebra has raised $1.8 million (€1.6 million) in a seed round led by Playfair Capital, with participation from existing investor Entrepreneur First. With this investment round, the company plans to scale its vision of a more agile, productive, and engaged workforce.
Founded in 2020 by Ian Monk, and Nick Shaw, Spotted Zebra provides an integrated skills cloud and suite of applications for skills-based workforce management. The skills cloud offers a common taxonomy of skills in the context of an organization’s unique values and operating principles. Applications tap into this to include employee hiring, succession planning, and retraining. The platform opens the door for skills-based conversations across the entire professional world.
The startup aims to help companies tap into the skills-based economy – where skills are more valued in the workforce than job titles and academic qualifications.
Sharing about the company, Co-founder & CEO of Spotted Zebra, Ian Monk, said:
The magnitude of the skills-gap crisis is astonishing. More than half of companies worldwide need help finding the skills they seek. Many companies are responding by adopting a new operating model for workforces that sees skills as the fundamental building blocks of work. But up until now, there has yet to be a coherent technology solution to support such a transition. Spotted Zebra changes that! We power skills-based organizations.
Spotted Zebra has built friendly tech that can work alongside existing HR systems, which means one can introduce a skills-based approach without needing change or upheaval. It serves several FTSE100 companies among its list of clients.
Commenting on the funding, Partner, Playfair Capital, Joe Thornton, added:
We are excited to partner with a team defining a new SkillsTech category within the £30 billion HR tech space, one that puts skills at the heart of all people’s decisions.
In 2020, Spotted Zebra had raised £150,000 in its pre-seed round led by Entrepreneur First.
