Zappyhire– Kerala-based AI startup helps companies solve recruitment riddle

Kochi: Jyothis S K and DeepuXavier have been working with IT majors for more than 15 year and had witnessed the challenges companies face when hiring. Hence, when they decided to take the entrepreneurship route, they knew what to sell – a platform that makes the mundane recruitment task easier. Thus born Zappyhire. The Kochi-based startup was started by the two in 2018. It currently serves more than 50 clients via its AI-powered recruitment platform. With two rounds of funding closed successfully, the company seems to be on a promising path and has an ambitious business expansion plan.

Infy was the catalyst for all of this.
Jyothis, a Kolenchery resident in Ernakulam’s district, and Xavier, a native from Cherthala in Alappuzha met when they were both working with Infosys in 2010. Both of them moved on to bigger roles at other companies but they never lost touch. With their combined experience in finance, AI and management, the two friends decided to venture out on their own. Jyothis, who came to Cognizant after working at Infosys, was the chief operating officer for CogniCor in Spain. Before founding Zappyhire, he was also the chief executive of CogniCor. After his stints at Infosys, Bosch, and Zappyhire, Xavier was the principal product manager for Java programming language at Oracle.

“While working in our previous companies, one common challenge we observed was about recruitment. Companies spend a lot time on the never-ending recruiting process. We found a hue scope for automation in the area,” Xavier told Onmanorama about the origins of their company.

Zappyhire began with three employees. This included the co-founders. Now, it’s a 46-member team. The company’s headquarters is at Kalamassery’s Kerala Starup Mission Campus. They now follow remote work culture. Federal Bank was the bank that helped the company make its first fortunes. This relationship continues to be a strong one. The banking giant has provided evidence that Zappyhire allowed them to hire around 1,100 candidates in just three months with a team of three. The company’s client line includes ESAF small finance bank, Baby Memorial Hospital, Hedge and CareStack.

What is Zappyhire?
It follows the software as an service (SaaS), and makes its revenue from subscriptions. It provides a fully-fledged platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), which helps clients to make the hiring process more efficient, save time and money. Zappyhire is a platform that automates the entire process of hiring employees – from creating job requests to releasing offer letters to onboarding – and adapts to the company’s existing processes.

The platform pre-screens hundreds of candidates using AI-enabled video interview and semantic resume parser. The platform with its database analyses a candidate’s behavioural and language skills and the probability of joining and staying with a firm. It conducts automated interviews during the initial phases.

“We never filter out any candidate. Only the recruiter can make the final decision on recruitment. The system provides maximum datapoints on a candidate to make the job of a recruiter easier. From writing the job description to sending the offer letter to the potential employee, the system assists the recruiter. It can also sense a candidate’s willingness or reluctance to take up a job based on her post offer engagement. Each company can also configure our system without compromising on its recruitment practices,” Xavier explained.

Zappyhire platform can be used by both candidates and recruiters, according to its founders. It helps C-level executives and business leaders track their hiring performance, receive insight and make recommendations specific to the organization and increase their recruiting ROI (returns on investment). It allows candidates to receive transparent communication and up-to-date information throughout the entire recruitment process.

Pandemic gains
Zappyhire falls under the Covid-induced lockdown category. “Before Covid, automation in hiring or digital recruitment was just a ‘nice to have’ feature for companies. With the pandemic lockdown, it became a ‘must have’ with digital recruitment becoming the new normal. It helped us gain acceptance,” Xavier said.

Expansion and funding
The company raised Rs 3.71 Crore from the Kerala Angel Network last November and from Alex K Babu (founder and CMD, Hedge Finance Limited), last November. Strategic investors also participated in the round, including Shihab Muhammed (ex-co-founder, Freshservice (Freshdesk), Navas Merian, chairman, Eastern Condiments Pvt. Ltd, Dr M I Sahadulla, Rajesh Nair – associate partner EY, chairman & managing director, KIMS, and K Paul Thomas, founder of ESAF Group of Social Enterprises. The funding round saw more than four of Zappyhire’s customers, including ESAF and Hedge Securities, turn into investors. Xavier said it reassured their belief in the company’s potential in the recruitment automation domain. The company raised over Rs 70 lakh in January 2020.

As part of its plan for expansion to the USA, it has begun the process to secure funding for the next round.