The hiring platform WorkTorch, based in Wichita, Kansas, is using $2.2 million in seed funding to expand into Atlanta to help service-industry employers in the city find workers to fill open jobs.
The startup announced the close of its seed round on Nov. 7. The round was led by Tenzing Capital, a Wichita-based firm that focuses on early-stage fintech and software startups. Joining Tenzing were previous investors MATH Venture Partners, Sandalphon Capital, KCRise Fund, Sixty8 Capital, Ruthless for Good Fund and Revolution's Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
WorkTorch also gained the support of new investors, including Bloomberg Beta, Graham & Walker Venture Fund, GROWKS, New Community Transformation Fund - Denver, Mid America Angels and the Women's Capital Connection Network. Angel investors Gene Camarena and Jennifer Risher also joined the round.
In addition to Atlanta, WorkTorch plans to use the funding to expand into Denver; Chicago; Dallas; Kansas City, Kansas; Kansas City, Missouri; and Nashville, Tennessee. The startup said in a statement it chose cities that were "desperate for service-industry employees."
Sisters Deborah Gladney and Angela Muhwezi-Hall founded WorkTorch, previously known as QuickHire, to help with hiring issues. They launched in 2021 as a platform to match employers with job-seekers and allow employers to schedule interviews and screen candidates. The startup recently rebranded and added new offerings, including career resources for service-industry workers and tools for hiring managers to help with recruitment and retention efforts.
"WorkTorch is growing because we empower both sides of the employment spectrum – the career seeker and the hiring company," Gladney said in a statement. "We connect service-industry professionals to the careers they want, as well as provide company support to ensure that their new employees feel empowered and nurtured."
The sisters told TechCrunch that they noticed high turnover rates in the service industry and wanted to do more to help employers retain employees. The rebrand reflects that added focus, they said.
One out of every three job seekers who applies on WorkTorch finds a role through the platform, and they stay in those positions three times longer than the average service-industry employee, the startup claims.
“We started leaning into what was happening to people post-hire and have started to focus on career development and talent retention tools,” Gladney told TechCrunch. “So our new name is WorkTorch. We want to be a guiding light to a better career, a better workforce.”
WorkTorch's platform is used by about 60 corporate customers, including Dunkin' Donuts and Homewood Suites by Hilton. More than 40,000 jobseekers are signed up through the platform, which facilitates 1,000 interviews every month.
Gladney and Muhwezi-Hall told TechCrunch that they faced a tough fundraising environment while raising their seed round — a process that took about six months. In a statement, WorkTorch said that with the raise, the sisters became two of the "very few" Black women to raise a significant amount of venture capital.
According to Crunchbase, startups led by women of color continue to be underfunded. Crunchbase data shows that Black women received about 0.35% of global VC funding in 2020.
"The WorkTorch team is taking on internal growth and operational challenges with high levels of excellence — and creating long-term business-client relationships that bring value to this needed space," Josh Oeding, the founder and general partner of Tenzing Capital, said in a statement.
