Irish co-founded Mathison raises $4.2m for its diversity hiring platform

Irish co-founded start-up Mathison has closed a $4.2 million (€3.5 million) seed round to further develop its hiring platform, which connects companies with workers from under-represented communities.

Headquartered in the US, the company has developed a cloud-based suite of products that includes tools such as a measurement system to detect bias in the hiring process.

Mathison was founded by Arthur Woods and Irish man Dave Walsh in 2019. Mr Walsh, the company's chief executive, was previously head of North America for talent marketplace, Jobbio.

Bain Capital Ventures, which has led the latest raising of funds, said it expects budgets for diversity, equity and inclusion to swell from $14 billion currently to $50 billion by 2025 as more companies focus on ensuring they reduce bias in the hiring process.

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The latest raising of funds, which also saw SemperVirens, Animo VC, Grand Central Tech, Gaingels, and Springbank Collective participating, brings to $6.2 million the total the start-up has raised to date, following a $2 million investment last year.

Growth

Mathison has grown by more than 700 per cent in the last year and it intends to use the new funding to aid further growth,” said Mr Walsh.

“The funding will be used for scaling our technology platform and accelerating our growth and impact. We are hiring across product, engineering, operations and sales. The investment will enable us to continue to invest in our product, roll out new platform features, and meet the unwavering demand,” he told The Irish Times.

"We have plans to open operations in Europe in the next few years. Many of our employer partners have asked us to expand into Europe, such as Accenture, Bristol Myers Squibb, TripAdvisor and HelloFresh, " Mr Walsh added.

Mathison makes money by charging a subscription and receiving a placement fee for successful hires. It donates a proportion of that placement fee back to the communities from which successful hires originate. The company has indexed more than 2,300 community organisations that serve under-represented groups.

Bain Capital Ventures, which is headquartered in Silicon Valley, has invested in more than 240 companies, including Docusign, Lime, LinkedIn, Rent the Runway and SurveyMonkey. It has $6.1 billion in assets under management.