Thailand-based end-to-end recruitment and onboarding software as a service (SaaS) platform Manatal announced Thursday it has closed $5.1 million in seed funding from Sequoia India’s Surge alongside angel investors.

The fresh funds will be channeled into engineering as the startup looks to enhance their product offering and artificial intelligence (AI)-recommendation engine in the following months, Manatal said in a statement.

According to the statement, this is the first investment for Sequoia India’s Surge in Thailand.

Manatal is part of Surge’s sixth cohort of 20 companies that build fresher, smarter solutions to help consumers and businesses adapt to a changing world.

“Manatal was designed to hire faster and better in a world where getting the best talents is critical for any company’s success. With Manatal, companies can now match the perfect fit for positions they are recruiting for in minutes. We’re proud of the success the platform has seen and are looking forward to further expanding our global reach,” said Jeremy Fichet Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Manatal.

Manatal is a Bangkok-based end-to-end recruitment and onboarding SaaS platform on a mission to transform how small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) recruits by using an AI-powered applicant tracking system, allowing companies to hire faster, better and save costs. It helps companies onboard in minutes and leverage the latest technologies to win the war for talent.

The company was founded in January 2019 by Jeremy Fichet (French) and Yassine Bel Mamoun (Moroccan) in Bangkok, Thailand. Jeremy has held senior positions in companies like Cdiscount, Orami and Groupon for over 15 years. Yassine has worked as an IT Consultant at Agility Factory, Data Scientist at Orami and served as a Quantitative Research Analyst at BNP Paribas

Since inception, Manatal has reached over 130 countries across the world, seen 3 times year-onyear revenue growth and onboarded thousands of clients without a sales team.

Manatal also aims to become the leading recruitment platform for millions of SMEs while ensuring the highest security and confidentiality with user data.

Cited a case study by McKinsey and Company, Manatal said that companies can realise a 40 percent increase in the quality of hires and a 12 percent decrease in first year attrition after they become more thoughtful and data-driven about hiring. As the war for talent continues to intensify amidst changing employee expectations and an increasingly borderless world, companies are also looking for simplified technology-based platforms to enhance their candidate experience. This is to ensure that recruiters have time to focus more on strategic interactions with stakeholders and candidates and less on the tactical aspects of the process.

Manatal’s simplicity helps recruiters leverage the latest technologies to streamline the entire recruitment flow from the sourcing to the onboarding. It also supports companies to improve internal and external communication, enrich their recruitment data sets, track key performance indicato (KPIs) and provide AI-powered recommendations. With Manatal, SMEs around the globe can combat challenges around talent recruitment and reach their hiring goals in a more affordable way than offered by the various enterprise recruitment solutions in the market.

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