We’ve got news to share – yesterday our CEO Caitlin MacGregor announced that Plum has raised $4.2M in seed funding! You can read the original press release here.
The announcement was made at SuccessConnect Las Vegas, the annual user conference from SAP SuccessFactors dedicated to helping HR executives and senior business leaders solve the most pressing workforce related challenges today and anticipate those of the future. Since Plum’s product integrates into the SAP SuccessFactors human capital management suite, and since we’re also featured on the SAP App Center, we couldn’t pass this up as the perfect opportunity to officially announce that we’ve closed $4.2M in seed funding (and, in combination with our previous Angel round, we’ve raised $6.1M to date!).
Caitlin MacGregor dropped the news during a panel discussion with other startups in the SAP.iO program (did we mention that that’s just another way we’ve partnered with SAP?). When asked how SAP.iO has helped Plum grow, Caitlin responded, “Plum’s mission is to prepare enterprises for the future of work by unlocking human potential. Organizations are facing unprecedented strategic workforce planning and talent management challenges in this era of automation and AI. This funding is enabling us to expand our team and our partnership with SAP to equip enterprises to tackle these challenges with predictive people data.”
Our $4.2M round was led by Real Ventures, a Venture Capitalist firm dedicated to future-focused startups that create new categories. “Over the next decade, people will need to be assigned and trained for new jobs on a scale that has never been seen,” said Janet Bannister, Partner at Real Ventures. “McKinsey claims that 400 to 800 million jobs will disappear due to automation in the next 15 years. At the same time, 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 do not exist today.”
Bannister went on to say, “Plum is the only provider of scientifically-validated, predictive data that can scale to get every person in the right job for the future of work – which is why we believe that Plum is posed to not only be a huge company, but also make a significant, positive impact on millions of lives."
Our other investors include SAP.iO and BDC Capital's Women in Technology Venture Fund.
Dr. Ram Jambunathan, SVP & Managing Director of SAP.iO (who was also leading the aforementioned panel discussion), told us, “An employee’s success in a role depends not only on an employee’s hard skills but also their intangible characteristics. But today, businesses still rely on traditional measures and assessments that are often prone to subjective biases. The SAP.iO Fund invested in Plum so our customers could build the full picture of their employee’s capabilities. Through Plum’s integration with SAP SuccessFactors, businesses can now drive the complete talent management experience that employees want and need for long-term success.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Traditionally, enterprises have had to rely on psychometric assessments that are limited to servicing only senior executive or high-volume roles. Until Plum, there have not been psychometric assessments that scale across the entire organization and throughout the entire employee lifecycle.
Plum revolutionizes the way enterprises quantify the potential of their workforce by automating the expertise of I/O Psychology, democratizing best practices so that organizations can unlock the potential of every applicant and employee in their organization. When employees are in jobs where their innate strengths can shine, they are more effective and engaged, positively impacting an organization’s retention, innovation, and customer relationships.
Although we at Plum originally launched as a recruitment tool, our platform’s offerings have expanded to enable data-driven and future-ready decision-making at every stage of the employee lifecycle, including hiring, talent mobility, learning & development, and identifying emerging leaders. We’re excited to continue expanding our offerings (not to mention, doubling our team!) with this new round of funding.
Read the full press release here. If you’d like to learn more about our exciting news, please contact emily@plum.io.