It would be an understatement to say that former HubSpot CMO Mike Volpe has been busy supporting Boston's tech community and propping up emerging startups since he was fired from his job last year.
"Most startups don't normally do this, but we simply had to make an exception for Mike."
While Volpe still hasn't disclosed any more details about his new anti-VC venture capital firm called Operator.VC, we have learned that he has invested in another startup and joined as an advisor.
This one is called Drafted, a Boston-based recruiting startup led by Kayak alum Vinayak Ranade that offers large cash rewards to people who successfully refer friends and colleagues to jobs that are posted on its Android and iOS app.
Ranade shared the news with BostInno on Friday, saying that Volpe's investment isn't part of a new round of funding and that it's more of a strategic move that will help Drafted take things to the next level.
"Most startups don't normally do this, but we simply had to make an exception for Mike," Ranade wrote in an email. "I can't disclose how much he is investing (it's not huge), but we are infinitely more excited about Mike than the money."
Ranade said there's a few reasons for taking Volpe on:
- The last 10 years have seen a revolution in marketing technology. In the next 10 years a lot of these ideas will be applied to the hiring industry, and Mike is one of the best people to help guide us through it.
- We are setting a trend in the space by changing our business model. Traditional hiring practices will fade over time, which means that traditional business models for hiring services will have to change too. One of Mike's poorly kept secrets is that he's not just a marketer, but also a business mastermind.
- Like us he cares about building companies in Boston.
- Mike is an operator. This means that he brings a certain operational wisdom that is fresh and practical, which is hard to come by for early stage startups like ours.
Drafted launched the second version of its app earlier this year, letting people browse through job listings, see if they have any mutual connections to a job they want and request an intro to the hiring manager through any mutual connections.
Vinayak said there are about 50 companies, mostly in Boston, on the platform's beta right now, and that Drafted is planning to open it up to more companies outside of Massachusetts this fall. "This has been intentional since we've been working on making sure that we provide excellent value for our customers," he said.
Drafted has raised $2.5 million so far from several other investors, including General Catalyst Partners, Accel Partners, Paul English's Blade startup accelerator and Boston Syndicates. It has six employees.
