South African developer hiring marketplace OfferZen has successfully closed a EUR4 million (US$4.3 million) funding round from top-tier investors, while also announcing a reformatting of its business model and some personnel changes.
Founded in 2015 and launched in 2016, OfferZen is a developer hiring marketplace that helps companies do more with less. It connects curated, actively job-seeking developers with job opportunities at over 2,000 companies in South Africa and beyond.
The startup raised a US$5.1 million funding round back in 2021, and has now secured an additional US$4.3 million from Invenfin and AI Capital.
“Securing this funding from investors who share our long-term vision is a testament to our team’s hard work,” said OfferZen co-founder Philip Joubert. “We couldn’t be more excited to partner with investors that bring so much experience. Their support and capital investment will help us make a lot of product improvements over the coming months.”
The company has also announced alterations to its business model. With 2023 a tough year funding-wise, OfferZen witnessed the struggles of its customers firsthand. Adding to the traditional per-hire charge, OfferZen introduced a fixed-fee unlimited hiring subscription, designed to ease the financial burden on tech companies.
“It’s always scary making a big change to your business, but fortunately Unlimited worked,” said Joubert. “It’s easy to budget for, competitively priced, and we hoped it would relieve some of the pressure our customers were feeling. A significant number of our customers have moved to the subscription model over the last year.”
After three years as CEO, Joubert is handing over the reins to Matt Beck, previously VP of marketing.
“Matt has been instrumental in levelling up our business for scale, loves our brand and has been a great champion of our values. I’m glad to be able to call him my new boss,” Joubert said.
“I’m really excited about this year,” Beck said. “Our customers can expect the most significant updates to the platform yet in the coming months as we’re introducing completely new ways for candidates and companies to connect using AI.”
