Canvas, previously known as Jumpstart, has secured $20 million in new funding to build the world’s ‘first’ diversity recruitment platform.
The recently rebranded platform is showing strong signs of momentum, with 3x year over year revenue growth, confirmed the company. Companies such as Airbnb, Bloomberg, Coinbase, Lyft, Pinterest, Plaid, Roblox, Audible and Stripe are already using Canvas’ services.
Canvas said it intends to use the new funding (led by Lachy Groom and Sequoia Capital with participation from Four Rivers Capital), to expand the platform into other industries and verticals beyond technology; and address the recruiting process for later stages of people’s careers. The company, founded by Ben Herman and Adam Gefkovicz back in 2017, currently has 70 employees and expects to have 100 by the end of 2021.
DIVERSE HIRING ACCOUNTABILITY
The company’s mission is to ‘make the world more equitable’. “We have finally entered an era where companies are being held accountable for their promises of equity and hiring diverse talent,” said Canvas’ CEO Ben Herman. “Canvas is the only platform that helps CEOs and hiring managers to truly walk the walk on diversity, equity and inclusion. Hiring diverse teams is not only a matter of corporate social responsibility, diversity and inclusion are a competitive advantage; and strategic priority for every company in today’s landscape. Companies that don’t have diverse talent pipelines will be discredited in the marketplace; overlooked by top talent, and be left behind by their competitors.”
Canvas is trailblazing a new industry category – Diversity Recruiting Platform (DRP) – that offers a differentiated approach for understanding, benchmarking and evolving diversity in the workplace,” stated Mike Vernal, Partner at Sequoia and Canvas board member. “We’re thrilled to double down on our partnership with Ben and the Canvas team as they help more companies source and hire diverse talent.”
UNDERREPRESENTED GROUP FOCUS
The Canvas Diversity Recruiting Platform is a fully virtual recruiting platform that is based on self-reported data. Unlike other solutions that might utilise 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 from underrepresented groups. The platform also helps employers to achieve a 30% reduction in time to hire.
“At Twilio, diversity and inclusion are woven into our core values. We want to go where others don’t, and consider talent others won’t. This means recruiting talent from dynamic backgrounds – including race, education, sexual orientation, income status, and geography – and fostering a culture of belonging. Canvas has enabled this strategy by giving us greater access to diverse pools of talent that want to grow their careers at Twilio,” stated Kevin Mottram, Director, Early in Career Talent at Twilio.
The platform also allows employers to get diversity analytics throughout their pipeline to see possible problem areas and make corrections. Candidates can apply for a job at one company, and they can still be considered by other Canvas clients; even if they didn’t apply there. This can help put diverse candidates in front of a bigger pool of potential employers, added the company.
Want to find out more about ethical hiring? Check out the article on ethical AI frameworks to ensure fair recruitment.
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