Malaysian social recruitment site Tribehired raises $560,000, plans global launch

Tribehired, a Malaysia-based jobs site that taps into social connections, has landed a SG$696K (US$560K) seed investment round led by Singapore’s TNF Ventures, with participation from angel investors Ben Ball and Ben Chew, as it takes steps towards a global launch.

The startup — which is yet another graduate of the inaugural JFDI Asia Bootcamp accelerator program to grab funding — is a recruitment site that provides incentives for “ordinary people” to play match-maker and recommend vacancies to their Facebook friends. It also uses Facebook to create a resumé for each user on the service.

The investment will be used to expand the team, and recruit new job seekers and employers to the platform.

Tribehired is currently running in a closed beta test phase in Malaysia and Singapore, but it has ambitions to launch internationally when the team has “reflected” on its learnings to date.

The service is already being used by a number of companies, including Rocket Internet-backed e-commerce firms Lazada and Zalora, fellow JFDI Asia alum (and TNF portfolio startup) Flocations and Singapore-headquartered social intelligence firm Brandtology.

Devan Singaram, Founder of Tribehired, explains that the round is important for bringing in the right strategic advisers, as well as new finances:

Today’s investment is crucial to the next stage of Tribehired’s development and not just because it brings us cash to fund our growth. In TNF we have access to a team of veteran entrepreneurs who have proved they know how to manage fast growth. Meanwhile Ben Chew brings specialist domain insight around recruitment.

Tribehired raised initial funding from the Cradle Fund, run by a Malaysian government agency, and it received pre-seed investment as part of its participation in the 100-day JFDI Asia-Singtel Innov8 Bootcamp last year.

To date, seven out of the 11 graduates from the inaugural Bootcamp have raised funding. The total investment closed currently stands at an impressive SG$3.9 million (US$3.1 million), according to JFDI Asia CEO Hugh Mason.

The startups taking part in the second JFDI Asia accelerator program were named in February.

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