Investment Notes: Hatch

We are excited to share Jelix Ventures' recent investment in Hatch, the disruptive jobs marketplace on a mission to help people find meaning in work. In December last year, Jelix participated in an oversubscribed $7m round alongside Rampersand, Investible, Aura Group and Alberts. Read the announcement article.

Why we're excited to back Hatch

Young people’s expectations of work have fundamentally changed, with prospective employees valuing company culture, alignment of values and the mission of the company. On the other side, employers need better ways to attract Gen Z candidates (who account for 44% of the current workforce), who are looking for values alignment, in an increasingly competitive labour market. This is a problem the Hatch founders regularly encountered as employers while running large organisations; they collectively hired 1000+ people. Over this time they noticed a trend that the best-performing hires were those with aligned values.

An exceptional founding team with experience in launching, growing and exiting technology companies

These two are a founding team with top-class credentials. Adam Jacobs and Chaz Heitner, have both built and exited incredibly successful businesses before. Adam was the co-founder/MD of THE ICONIC where he led 1,000+ staff, and built an ecomm marketplace of 2.2m active customers and 1,500 fashion brands. Chaz co-founded ZipCo, the Buy Now Pay Later marketplace, which IPO’d in 2015, whilst previously building and selling businesses in the media and hospitality industries.

Not only do Adam and Chaz have demonstrable success as entrepreneurs, but they also seem incredibly mission-driven and they have set their sights high with Hatch. This team is tackling a complex problem involving people’s search for meaningful work by creating a technology solution to deliver stronger alignment between candidates and employers. Through all of our interactions with Hatch, we have been impressed by their sophisticated level of conduct. They are driven, smart and experienced - a combination we are excited to back. 

Strong customer love and dissatisfaction with the status quo

Impressively, Hatch is experiencing 30% month-on-month growth for candidate applications. The candidate-first approach, meaning that the tool is designed to appeal to candidates, results in a better experience for all users. Hatch’s current marketplace subscribers include some high-profile employers and all customers we spoke to referenced how easy the product is to use, and that it is a ‘real-time saver’. One of these time-saving features is the ability for candidates to apply with a video application, enabling recruiters to use it as a screening process rather than an initial call. The holistic matching approach has also meant that it has made recruiters “look at applications that I wouldn’t have otherwise looked at, and at the end of the day, that makes me a better recruiter.”

Interestingly, all customers we spoke with shared unanimous and very strong disapproval of the incumbent players (Linkedin and Seek) as a way to hire future talent, whilst speaking incredibly highly of the merits of Hatch.

An evidence-based AI product embedded in next-gen trends

The Hatch marketplace uses an AI matching tool to match candidates with employers based on holistic fit, rather than just ‘CV keyword tracking.’ They have initially targeted Gen Z candidates and top, reputable employers, with the ultimate vision for Hatch to be the place where all people find meaning in work. 

Hatch’s AI matching tool predicts fit between people and jobs by looking beyond resumes into underlying traits - skills, strengths, work styles, interest, and values - as well as traditional job and education history. The approach is built on decades of organisational psychology, social psychology, and psychometrics research into person-job fit. 

A valuable platform with exciting global potential

Despite focusing on an initial subset of the market (young professionals), the current addressable market in AU alone represents a large $1bn opportunity. If they can grow internationally and also widen the scope of professional candidates (e.g. more senior candidates) the total addressable market globally becomes $44bn. Speaking with customers, it is clear that there is an immediate need for Hatch in this large market.

We look forward to supporting Hatch in the mission to help people find meaning in work, and to realize the grand ambition of displacing Linkedin and Seek.