Stafory

Stafory is an Internet platform on personnel recruitment. Service allows to close quickly vacancies of any level of complexity, using for this purpose resources of huge number of recruiters across all Russia: on the platform are registered and actively about 950 recruiters, including 250 agencies work that makes more than 20% of the total number of the agencies in Russia. Service not only helps business quickly and to economically find suitable candidates, but also allows recruiters and small recruitment agencies to receive additional earnings, providing them more commission and the choice of available vacancies.

Stafory works at the market of personnel recruitment which amount in Russia is estimated by tens of billions of rubles. In particular, according to a research of Association of private employment agencies, volume only offline market on hiring of permanent staff made in 2015 about 11.2 billion rubles, at the same time – according to the experts, the size of the market of online recruiting is about 4.8-5 billion more rubles (on the basis of open data on revenue of the largest players). Stafory works in segments of point and mass personnel recruitments which total share makes about 60% in a total amount of the market whereas competitors are focused on selection of top candidates or point recruitment. Among foreign analogs it is possible to select the Hiring Hub platforms (Great Britain), Bounty Jobs (USA), Talentory (Europe) which have functionality approximately similar among themselves and work at the developed world markets. These projects position themselves as on-line recruitment agencies, only with a large number of recruiters.

Stafory works as follows: service integrates on one platform of the company which are in search of personnel, recruiters-freelancers and small recruitment agencies which are ready to look for candidates by the set parameters. The companies leave on the website of the request for specific vacancies and determine the amount of remuneration which they are ready to pay for the successful candidate. If the candidate is employed, the customer company pays the amount of remuneration through the platform, and Stafory receives the commission.

History

2020: After the complaint Stafori of HeadHunter obliged not to prevent use of software for recruiting

On January 27, 2020 it became known that the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) of Russia directed HeadHunter not to prevent the companies to use the third-party software for personnel recruitment.

According to Kommersant with reference to the text of the FAS decision made after 9-month trial, HeadHunter violated the law on the competition, without allowing clients to use the robot Belief developed by Stafori company. The regulator issued to HeadHunter the instruction about the termination of creation of obstacles for entry of Stafori into the market. Read more here.

2018: Attraction of $3.4 million investments for entry into the new markets

The Stafori company (Robot Vera brand) is a startup which develops services of automation for HR on the basis of artificial intelligence and machine learning — attracted the next round of investments: $3.4 million (or 226 million rubles). The IIDF acted as the main investor. At the same time, Georgy Semenenko, the CEO of Kirov Plant joined a round. Investments are provided partially in the form of a convertible loan, partially — in the capital of the company. Other details of the transaction are not disclosed.

Robot of Vera will direct the involved investments to the international expansion and start of a new product for international markets. The priority countries for development — Great Britain, the USA and Germany, they are characterized by high interest in new solutions in the field of HR Tech and large volumes of hiring, explained in Stafori. Besides, for December, 2018 the company carries out pilots and in other markets — France, Italy, India, the UAE, Serbia.

Within summer the road show in the USA key analysts of the market — Talent Tech Labs and Deloitte companies — recognized the first Stafori service, the Robot Belief, the special perspective product which actually does not have analogs in the world. Chat-bots on the basis of AI, however the products using voice services using machine learning technologies are presented at the HR Tech market in the USA, in this sphere not yet — noted in Stafori.

Product with which the company intends to enter on international markets — service of assessment of satisfaction of employees and holding an exit-interview. It allows the companies to establish precisely the personnel turnover reasons, to analyze its reasons and to help to eliminate them.

According to developers, Robot of Vera receives a feedback from employees during call-down or a conversation in a chat, reveals key problems or, in case of holding an exit-interview, a reason for leaving. As a result management receives a detailed picture of the existing problems in collective. For the big geographically distributed Robot Vera companies can make "the thermal card" for identification of geographical "centers" of problems.

During piloting of services in Russia conversion indicators at call-down by Vera and the staff of the company matched — people willingly spoke with the robot. At the same time, the reliability and frankness of the received answers are much higher, than at communication with the employee of the company — at people is not present arises a psychological barrier, respondents do not give to the robot socially expected answers.

Part of the attracted money will be invested in R&D in the field of natural languag processing. It is obvious that a key question in communication of the machine with the person — a possibility of live dialog. Developers of Belief are going to come to this stage in 6-8 months.

Since the beginning of start Robot of Vera shows growth without reducing rates. It is one of the most successful and fast-growing startups in a portfolio of IIDF which in two years of existence already applies for becoming the standard for all market of HR. Actually the command made a revolution in the field of personnel recruitment: having begun it in Russia, continues to automate HR worldwide, and the next round of investments is aimed at multiple growth abroad — Nikita Yuryev, the investment manager of IIDF and the board member of Stafori explained.

We see huge potential in the products "Robot Vera" not only on Russian, but also on global the markets. We jointly study different scenarios of an entry of the company in Europe, in particular — to Germany. We are sure: services "Robot Vera", a new round of investments and our examination in business development in Europe can give qualitative synergy effect for all participants of the transaction — Georgy Semenenko, the CEO of Kirov Plant added.

2017: Attraction of 50 million rubles from IIDF

On August 3 it became known that the Internet Initiatives Development Fund (IIDF) intends to invest 50 million more rubles in the Russian startup of Stafory which developed service for the automated selection of candidates for AI vacancies Robot of Vera. Stafory will send investments to completion of a product and its market promotion of the USA.^[1]

We automated all process of mass hiring of employees. Thanks to Robot Vera time for search of candidates on work portals, selection of potential employees, an audio-and video interview, a final interview invitation can be reduced till three o'clock. For closing of one vacancy recruiters can browse up to 1000 summaries, ring round about 50 employees a day, and on average recruiters spend for hiring of one employee about 23 days. Using Robot Vera service, recruiters save the time, multiply increasing the speed of closing of a vacancy — the founder of Stafory company Vladimir Sveshnikov explained.

The market of personnel recruitment of the USA one of the most developing — about $20 billion that exceeds Russian a hundred times. In the USA there are already first interested clients with whom the company started tests — Nikita Yuryev, the investment manager of IIDF added in return.

Earlier the Stafory command developed the platform for search of employees using recruiters. The automated service for personnel recruitment was created only in January, 2017. According to representatives of fund, the Stafory service works based on machine learning technology and is capable to find candidates "one hundred times faster than the person".

2016: Investments of IIDF

In February, 2016 Stafory passed in the seventh set of an accelerator of IIDF and attracted from fund 2.1 million rubles in exchange for 7% of the company.^[2]

In September, 2016 the Internet Initiatives Development Fund invested 15 million more rubles in the Stafory project: Internet service which helps employers to find and hire employees by forces of independent recruiters across all Russia. The startup was going to direct the received investments to automation of routine transactions and further expansion.

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