Amid a tight labor market, Atlanta Ventures is betting Atlanta-based startup Grayscale Labs Inc. has a solution to employee recruiting woes.
Grayscale, based in the Atlanta Tech Village, automates the recruiting process for businesses that hire in high volumes, such as warehousing or tech companies with high growth. Through automated text messages, it helps recruiters manage candidates.
The competitive labor market is causing companies to quicken the hiring process, raise wages or move to new offices to lure new employees. Unemployment in Georgia was at 2.8% in August, according to an announcement from the state. The job market locally and nationally has officially surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
Grayscale has a massive market opportunity, said Jon Birdsong, partner at Atlanta Ventures. The early-stage investment firm based in the Atlanta Tech Village is known for scouting out some of Atlanta's fastest-growing startups. The firm has investments in scheduling startup Calendly, and marketing tech startups Salesloft — both of which surpassed $1 billion valuations in recent years.
Atlanta Ventures led Grayscale's $7.5 million Series A round. Fellow local investment firm Overline VC also participated. Signature Bank also provided $2.5 million in debt financing to the company, Grayscale CEO Ty Abernethy said.
As part of the raise, Salesloft co-founder Rob Forman will join Grayscale's board of directors.
The funding will be used to nearly double its 32-person staff in the next 18 months. Hires will be in sales, engineering, customer support and marketing.
The recent investment comes one year after the Grayscale's first institutional raise when it received $3.3 million, also led by Atlanta Ventures.
In April, Grayscale was named the 19th fastest-growing Atlanta company by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. It grew its revenue 194% and its staff 461% between 2019 and 2021. It was also named one of our 2022 Startups to Watch.
As of 2021, Grayscale had around 200 customers. Some of which include Peloton Interactive Inc., eBay Inc., DoorDash Inc., HelloFresh and The Hershey Co., according to the company.
The company was founded by Abernethy and chief technology officer Hubert Liu in 2018. Abernathy was also the founder and co-founder of interviewing and recruiting startups ZuzuHire and ConveyIQ. Liu was previously an engineering lead at Atlanta Ventures.
