Congrats to Ziprecruiter is in order their stock debuted on the NYSE yesterday and closed the first day up 17%...it opened at 18 and closed at just over 21 bucks per share.  The ticker symbol is ZIP in case you want to look it up. ---- Spokn, the podcasting platform for work, announced that it has closed a $4M Seed round with funding from NEA, Y Combinator, along with several other investors The financing will support further market expansion and enable Spokn to enhance the platform for content creators. Spokn was founded by Fawzy Abu Seif, Mariel Davis and Mohammed Galal and launched as an internal communications platform in November 2020. Since that time, Spokn has grown rapidly, attracting customers such as ServiceNow, Podium, Udemy, and others. Beyond internal communications, Spokn’s customers create podcasts for more effective employee engagement; onboarding; diversity, equity and inclusion; and learning & development. “Employees do their best work when they trust their leadership, are connected to their colleagues, understand their company’s direction, and feel motivated to contribute” said Fawzy Abu Seif, CEO and Co-founder of Spokn. “But existing tools weren’t designed to be the cultural connective tissue that remote or hybrid teams need. Podcasting is the perfect fit for reaching employees in the format they love – whether for messages from executives, staff spotlights, or stories on company history and values. Spokn is the only part of a company’s workstack that keeps employees connected while giving them a break from their screen.”   Stay tuned to the pod because I’ll be interviewing Mariel Davis in a few weeks. As a podcaster I am very intrigued by what spokn is up to hear. https://hrtechfeed.com/podcasting-for-work-spokn-gets-4-million/ Workrise, (formely known as Rigup)  the leading workforce management platform for the skilled trades, has raised a $300 million Series E round  Workrise connects skilled laborers with infrastructure and energy companies looking to staff and manage projects efficiently. The company’s online platform matches workers with more than 500 companies in its network, manages payroll and benefits, and provides access to training. Founded in 2014 as a platform to match skilled laborers with companies in the oil and gas industry, Workrise has since broadened its business to serve companies and trade workers in the solar, wind, commercial construction, and defense industries. The company will use the latest investment to continue to expand into new markets served by its platform. https://hrtechfeed.com/workrise-gets-300m-series-e/ DailyPay, the on-demand pay solutions for enterprises, announced it has secured $500 million of capital. The company is announcing a $175 million Series D equity round led by Carrick Capital Partners with participation from existing investors. In addition, the company is announcing it has raised $325 million of credit capital from various sources.  The Company intends to invest its newly raised capital in new market opportunities for its technology platform, in addition to extending its market leadership position in on-demand pay among the largest employers in the world. “This financing package creates a fortress balance sheet that we can deploy on behalf of employers and their employees,” said Scot Parnell, Chief Financial Officer at DailyPay. “The on-demand pay industry requires an exceptionally well-capitalized balance sheet to ensure the highest degree of service delivery, reliability and trust.” https://hrtechfeed.com/dailypay-raises-500-million-for-its-on-demand-pay-solution/ Jumpstart, a Diversity Recruitment Platform (DRP) who’s mission is to make the world more equitable, is rebranding as Canvas. The startup also announced $20 million in new funding. The company currently has 70 employees and expects to have 100 by the end of 2021.  The Canvas Diversity Recruiting Platform is a fully virtual recruiting platform that is based on self-reported data. Unlike other solutions that might utilize inferred data that could be inaccurate or illegal, Canvas helps create a more accurate data set to identify diverse candidates, helping to solve the core problem of talent discovery. In fact, 56% of all hires on the Canvas platform are made from Under represented Groups (URGs), and the platform helps employers achieve a 30% reduction in time to hire.  NOTE: the new name is the same as the text recruiting company acquired by Jobvite. That name appears to have been now sunsetted. The new Canvas has acquired the canvas.com domain.  https://hrtechfeed.com/diversity-recruiting-platform-raises-20m/ BrightHire, the leading interview intelligence platform designed to empower companies with the unprecedented insight they need to make the best hiring decisions easily, today announced $12.5M in new funding. The raise will further the company’s investment in next-level analytics for measuring the quality, effectiveness and equity of interviews. The company also revealed the results of a new research study that shines light on bias in the interview process and demonstrates the power of analytics for improving the way companies hire. Built with seamless integrations into Zoom and leading Applicant Tracking Systems, BrightHire helps teams run a consistent and evidence-based hiring process. The platform guides, captures and analyzes and easily shares interviews equipping hiring managers to make fair and fully informed hiring decisions. The demand for BrightHire’s new approach and shift to remote-first hiring have fueled the company’s 70x year-over-year revenue growth. https://hrtechfeed.com/interview-intelligence-platform-brighthire-raises-12-5m/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices