BLOOMINGTON – Flywheel Fund, a member-managed capital fund run by The Mill, today announced a $50,000 follow-on investment in Qualifi, as part of a $2.5 million seed round led by Rally Ventures. Qualifi’s on-demand screening platform allows recruiting teams to phone interview hundreds of candidates in minutes.
Pat East, Executive Director of The Mill, a nonprofit center for entrepreneurship, said, “I first became aware of Qualifi in 2019 when Darrien Mikell competed at Crossroads Pitch Competition. Darrian recognized then that phone interviews were the biggest bottleneck in the hiring process, particularly for high-volume recruiting efforts. And now, post-pandemic, with the global surge in hiring, Qualifi’s solution is needed more urgently than ever.”
Qualifi’s audio-based platform enables recruiters to phone screen, multiple candidates, simultaneously, resulting in faster time-to-hire (up to 8 days faster) with a more convenient, accessible, and unbiased hiring experience. Candidates respond to pre-recorded questions over a standard phone call, and because there’s no need for scheduling or phone tag, recruiters can vet seven times more candidates per day on average. The platform captures rich, actionable data so that recruiters can make the best hiring decisions without bias and scale their efforts with integrations to more than 30 of the top Applicant Tracking Systems.
Other investors this round included Techstars, Sixty8 Capital, Elevate Ventures, Debut Capital, Northwestern Mutual Black Founder Accelerator, Converge, Service Provider Capital, and multiple strategic angels. The Mill had previously invested $25,000 in Qualifi in February 2021. Brian Hatton, Venture Partner for Flywheel Fund, commented, “We’re particularly proud to invest in HR tech that not only solves a logistical problem in interviewing but simultaneously reduces bias in hiring, enabling companies to quickly build highly qualified diverse teams.”
Qualifi Co-Founder and CEO Mikell said, “Flywheel Fund is one of the most founder-friendly funds you can ask for. Not only is Pat East an excellent advisor, but the members of the fund are experienced in a variety of industries, and they are engaged in their companies. One of the happiest surprises I’ve had is how quickly they make funding decisions. They recognize that fundraising is a huge time commitment, so they don’t bog founders time down with long processes.”
Qualifi will use the financing to advance its product with additional AI, ML, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities and expand go-to-market efforts with marketing and sales to support its rapid growth. Qualifi is an alumnus of Techstars Anywhere ’21.
About Flywheel Fund
Flywheel Fund is a member-managed capital fund for early-stage and high potential startups based in Indiana, with special attention to startups based in Bloomington and southern Indiana. Flywheel reserves a minimum of 13% of its funds for Black founding teams. Flywheel Fund launched in 2020 and is managed by The Mill.
About The Mill
The Mill is the heart of southern Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem and its largest coworking space. The Mill’s mission is to spark Bloomington’s innovation economy by launching and accelerating startups, and its vision is to become Indiana’s center of gravity for entrepreneurship.
About Qualifi
Qualifi is a platform that sends, shares, and tracks audio-based, on-demand asynchronous phone interviews for recruiters. This speeds up the hiring process, mitigates bias, and maintains a human touch while allowing recruiters to interview hundreds of candidates in minutes. With Qualifi, recruiters go from struggling to fill roles to becoming a talent engine.
