A new Chicago startup is working to help underserved job candidates connect with employers looking to fill roles, and it just closed a seed round of funding.
RiseKit, formerly known as Solve, raised $1.4 million in a funding round led by Stand Together Foundation, an Arlington, Virginia-based nonprofit that invests in poverty-fighting organizations. The Verte Opportunity Fund Zone and a host of angel investors also participated.
The new funding brings RiseKit’s total financing to more than $2 million.
Founded in 2018 by Matt Strauss, Dario Medina and Dominique Wilson, RiseKit’s platform targets underserved and low-income jobseekers. The platform allows users to make a profile and receive guidance and application help for jobs and career training programs that meet their skills. Users get access to case managers and career coaches along the way.
“We connect individuals typically in underserved communities to jobs to rise above all their barriers to employment,” said Strauss, RiseKit’s CEO. “It’s really like a network to help get access to every opportunity. We’re trying to change the way we’re dealing with poverty.”
Strauss, who has a background in venture capital, has been a long-time volunteer to help low-income Chicagoans. He previously volunteered at local workforce development organizations like i.c. stars and Teamwork Englewood.
Now with RiseKit, Strauss works with businesses of all sizes, as well as nonprofits and government agencies, to list open jobs and career training programs on the platform. The company’s business model is supported by a premium version it offers its B2B customers, which gives them more features and analytics capabilities.
RiseKit has more than 1,200 users in the Chicagoland area, and has about 300 corporate and nonprofit partners that list jobs on its platform.
Besides Chicago, RiseKit is live in Atlanta and Dallas, and the startup said it aims to expand into 50 new markets by 2025. Oftentimes when RiseKit launches in a new market, it partners with a local nonprofit organization to make connections with communities that need job support. RiseKit considers itself an opportunity zone company, a federal distinction that allows businesses to receive tax benefits if they are located in or provide services to specific areas that qualify as low-income communities.
RiseKit, which employs 10 full-time employees, said it will use the new funding to build out its tech platform, improve its data analytics capabilities, and ramp up sales and marketing initiatives.
“Stand Together Foundation has been working with community-based nonprofits that we believe are driving tremendous impact and fighting against cycles of poverty,” said Sihyun Choi, the managing director of Stand Together Venture Labs. “We were intrigued by RiseKit’s model for impact, which was this notion that you’re helping a person really craft their journey.”
