Usually, when we refer to the future of work, it’s understood to be something humans do.
Sure, we’ve automated much of our drudgework in the 250 years since the Industrial Revolution began. And yes, artificial intelligence looks poised to take on even more.
But still, it’s often observed that every technological era both destroys existing jobs and creates new ones. It’s a trend we’ve witnessed in recent startup cycles, with the rise of entirely new occupations — like app developers, Uber drivers and influencers — even as other once-common professions decline.
With that in mind, we turned this week to the Crunchbase dataset to see what recent startup financings around employment and recruiting tell us about changes percolating in our ever-evolving job market.
First, a look at funding
Our query comes amid a period in which the HR, recruiting and employment categories look neither in vogue nor out-of-favor with venture investors.
So far this year, global startup investment for these categories totaled around $2.3 billion, per Crunchbase data. That puts funding on track for a year-over-year gain, even as investment remains at a fraction of levels hit during the market peak, as charted below.
Trends to watch
So where’s the money going? Looking at favored areas for funding, we identified three trends on the rise: AI screening, freelance and gig employment, and productivity enhancement tools. We will examine a fourth trend — tools for frontline workers — in a separate article.
AI screening
AI-enabled screening, recruiting and job-hunting tools looked like one of the most popular areas for funding. And although this is a space that’s far from new, it’s still evolving quite rapidly.
The sector has attracted considerable investment this year in particular. To illustrate, we used Crunchbase data to put together a list of 15 companies that have raised funding since January.
Many of these aren’t small rounds either. The largest funding recipient on our list — San Francisco-based Mercor — picked up a $100 million Series B in February at a $2 billion valuation. The startup uses AI to streamline the hiring process by performing tasks such as automated resume screening, candidate matching and interviews.
AI-driven interviews and outreach in particular seems to be a rising theme in the startup world — and in the real-world experiences of job hunters. On the funding front, this was reflected in a $35 million June Series B for Metaview, a London-based startup that touts detailed interview notes and analysis among its core offerings. Also Perfect, a New York-based provider of tools for recruiters that finds and crafts messages for prospective hires, picked up $23 million earlier this year.
Gig and freelance work
Of course, not all those AI-driven interviews will result in a salaried job. In many cases, employers are looking for freelance providers, hourly workers, or to fill temporary gigs. Recently funded startups have these use cases covered as well.
Using Crunchbase data, we assembled a sample set of nine companies with offerings around these themes that have raised funding this year.
The best known unicorn in this set is Madrid-based Job&Talent, which has raised nearly a billion dollars since inception for a hiring platform focused on helping people quickly find jobs in their local areas. It picked up an additional $108 million in late-stage funding this spring.
We’re also seeing sizable rounds for companies focused on particular industries, including Comet, for IT; Miter, for building; and Extracadabra, for hospitality.
More productive versions of existing jobs
But what are the growth areas for jobs? After all, we started this analysis in part to answer the question: What are the new jobs emerging in the current technology cycle?
Tough question. Looking at funding data, it seems we’re not seeing new categories of jobs created so much as increased expectations that workers will perform more efficient and productive versions of their old jobs using AI tools. The result so far looks like fewer jobs overall, particularly in automation-friendly areas like customer support.
To this end, quite a few startups are raising sizable rounds to help employers deploying automation into more tasks. Using Crunchbase data, we put together a sample list of seven that have raised funding since last year.
We included this as a category because it hints to a future in which employees adept in using productivity-enhancing tools will have an edge in hiring.
Among companies on our list, Silicon Valley-based Aurasell was the newest addition, launching from stealth last week with $30 million in initial funding to scale an AI-enabled CRM platform it hopes will allow pros to automate busy work and focus on “human to human selling.”
The most heavily funded company, meanwhile, is Whatfix, which has raised over $260 million to develop tools for organizations to spur adoption of productivity-enhancing digital technologies.
Unusual times
Overall, funding data seems to point to what we already intuitively know: The job market is in a strange place. Well-paid desk jobs that professionals once considered relatively stable are increasingly under threat as AI tools enable more work to be done in less time. In-person jobs, meanwhile, look a bit more stable, at least for the time being.
We’ll check back in a while to see if employment-related startup funding offers more cues as to where the good jobs are to be found.
Related Crunchbase queries:
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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