London has added yet another tech unicorn to its growing list after AI-based talent management firm Beamery completed a $50 million (£41 million) funding round valuing it at over $1 billion.
The Shoreditch-based firm, which uses artificial intelligence to help businesses identify and plug workforce skills gaps via training programmes, plans to use the funding to expand product development and add more recruits to its 400-strong workforce, the majority of which is based in the UK.
The funding makes the firm the latest in a growing number of London-based tech companies that have defied economic gloom and achieved unicorn status in 2022, including fintech firm Paddle and Euan Blair’s online education platform Multiverse. The UK created the most unicorns in Europe in 2021, with over 23 billion euros invested in 41 separate billion-dollar businesses.
Abakar Saidov, Beamery CEO, told the Standard he felt that social hierarchies are still too big a determinant on career prospects. “The birthplace ladder is very real – the way you’re born has the biggest impact on your livelihood and earning potential,” he said.
“So we wanted to build a company that meaningfully made an impact on how people access skills careers opportunities – that’s something that was really important to us and that’s kind of the mission for the business.”
The funding round was led by Teachers’ Ventures Growth (TVG), part of the C$242 billion Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, adding to its Series C investment in June 2021.
The company has added global brands like BBC and Uber to its roster of clients, and has helped companies make critical progress on key talent management work.
The funding comes amid deepening economic gloom as the UK heads into recession, with company bosses urging the Government to relax its cap on immigration to boost growth and fill staffing gaps — particularly in the retail, hospitality and construction industries.
Speaking on economic migration, the boss of business association the Confederation of British Industry Tony Danker told the BBC: “The reason why it’s so important is we have literally over a million vacancies in this country, we have 600,000 people who are now long-term unwell, who aren’t coming back to the labour market any time soon.”
Saidov said: “This is the first recession in living memory where we have a full employment or high-employment recession, and outside the big tech companies that have had layoffs there are still lots of businesses that are hiring more, not less.
“What’s really changed in the last three, four months is the desire to look at the workforce holistically -- investing in those people is becoming a much bigger priority than it was before. The demand for what we’re doing is continuing to increase.”
