Flexa Careers, the platform bringing transparency to the hiring market, has raised a £2.3m ($2.9m/€2.7m) Seed Round to expand their global reach. The round was led by Ada Ventures and joined by Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, angel syndicate HERmesa, and a wide group of angel investors. 

Flexa has flipped the hiring process on its head; enabling companies to showcase what their working environments offer when it comes to flexibility and benefits, and be discovered by candidates who want to know up-front how the company operates and get a transparent look at what its working policies are before applying for a role. 

Flexa vets and verifies companies through a two-stage benchmarking process; looking at everything from their approach to working location, through to what benefits are on offer, and then surveying how their current employees feel about working there.  

Companies are then approved to showcase their jobs on the platform and people can filter opportunities by these criteria to find their perfect working environment in seconds. 

73% of candidates say flexibility is non-negotiable and people are 257% more likely to apply to a company through Flexa versus a job traditional platform, according to Flexa’s research with YouGov. Flexa is enabling companies to build their brands as flexible, empowering employers, whilst increasing the discoverability of their vacancies and their ability to appeal to a more diverse audience. 

“Until now, there has been nowhere to go to find out which companies offer the working environment that someone wants or needs”, says Flexa founder Molly Johnson-Jones. 

She adds: “This means candidates either have to ask during the interview process - with which the majority of people are uncomfortable, and leads to hours in wasted applications and interviews if it’s not the right fit - or, worse again, accept a job and hope for the best. 

“In the modern working world, that’s just not good enough. Flexa Careers solves this problem by only featuring companies who meet a certain standard of flexibility and who are willing to be upfront about what they offer.”

Founded in early 2020 by Molly Johnson-Jones, Maurice O’Brien, and Tim Leppard, Flexa Careers now has over 450,000 users, and more than 150 companies headquartered all over the world have been approved to feature on the platform. Flexa Careers has already been used by candidates across 70 countries, but their core audience is centred in the UK and Ireland, where they originally launched. This funding will therefore be used to expand and solidify their global reach.

The company was inspired by Molly’s experience of asking a former employer to work from home one day per week, to help accommodate a chronic health condition. Within ten days of making the request, Molly was sacked. Her subsequent job hunt was fraught with anxiety, with few employers offering clarity on their home working or flexible hours policies. This approach, which leaves candidates disempowered and in the dark, prompted Molly, Maurice and Tim to create a better way of finding genuinely flexible companies.

Molly comments:

“The world of work is changing rapidly and we’re seeing people demand more when it comes to how and where they work. Our user numbers have sky-rocketed month on month since launch, as people are no longer willing to put up with inflexible working environments. In a tight labour market, engaged and progressive employers are winning talent by offering more choice and autonomy - these are the companies embracing the Flexa model. 

“I’m thrilled that we’ve been able to raise this funding, which means we can help more people access the information that they truly care about during their job search, and get more companies Flexified. I’m also really proud that over 50% of our investors in this round are women and I can’t wait to work with this esteemed group to grow the business.”

Check Warner, Partner at Ada Ventures and who will now join the Flexa Careers board, comments:

“At Ada we look for companies which could reach one billion people and we believe Flexa can change the way that billions of people find the right job for them. In the last two years there has been a fundamental shift in the way people feel about their jobs, the type of work they want to do, and how they want to do it. The best talent is fought over by companies - yet it’s still virtually impossible to really understand what it’s like to work at a company before accepting an offer. Flexa is changing that. Flexa’s uniquely transparent audit and certification process ensures that companies who say they offer flexibility, really do so. Flexa should be the first place candidates go to research workplaces and the place that hiring managers go to share the benefits they offer. We are pleased to be investing in a team with such a clear mission to make work accessible to everyone.”

Bettine Schmitz, Partner and Founder at Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, comments:

"We 100% believe in the base assumption that "how" we work is just as important in job satisfaction and search preferences as "what" we work. We see a huge opportunity in backing such a strong team building Flexa to cater to this enormous market."