Netherlands-based Funded.club is helping UK startups recruit through COVID-19 crisis

As tech startups grapple with coronavirus pandemic, a company out of the Netherlands is disrupting the startup recruiting world in a big way. Founded in early 2019, Funded.club provides recruiting services for startups and scale-ups on a fixed-fee basis. Rather than charge based on a percentage of annual salary, Funded.club receives only a “success fee” of 2,600 GBP irrespective of the salary offered or how long it takes to fill a position.

The company’s model is designed to help fast-growing, early-stage businesses that don’t have the time or resources to invest in an in-house recruiting operation. Whereas traditional staffing firms place an additional cost burden on startups with limited capital, Funded.club offers a viable alternative for sourcing high-quality candidates.

In light of the global coronavirus pandemic, startups all around the world are struggling to stay afloat. Many governments are stepping in to help founders with short-term financial aid packages. Germany recently committed €2 billion, and France pledged €4 billion to help startups get through the crisis.

However, the UK government hasn’t moved as quickly. Leaders are evidently exploring ways to support the startup sector with co-investments and state-owned funds. However, it’s likely that any intervention will be much smaller than what other western European governments contributed.

UK startups that were on positive growth trajectories are now wondering if they can survive, while the government figures out what to do next. Funded.club recognizes the pressure these businesses are facing and is ready to partner closely with founding teams to help them grow with efficient fundraising and recruiting.

Much of how Funded.club operates is attributable to its founder, Ray Gibson, who is himself an entrepreneur. After 20 years in recruiting and another 5 in startups, Gibson recognized that there was a disconnect between how most recruiting agencies function and what young businesses need to be successful.

He developed a model that provides founders with dedicated, outsourced recruiting services to bring in top talent from all over the world. Gibson emphasizes efficiency through Funded.club’s approach, reducing time-to-hire and cost-per-hire dramatically for the company’s startup clients. The distributed team of recruiters also brings market knowledge to each client to map talent and accurately assess salaries.

Gibson comments, “One of the first reactions I get when talking to founders is that it all sounds too good to be true – that is until they see the first candidates within 7 days of engaging us. Working exclusively on each assignment and developing a close relationship with founding teams has allowed us to maintain a 100% success rate and to keep fees low. We’re passionate about quality and delivering exceptional service whether that’s for a CTO hire for a small team or for customer support in a scale-up operation.”

In under a year, Funded.club has already helped businesses in many countries cut cost-per-hire by 70-80% and time-to-hire to a couple of weeks rather than months. The company has completed successful hiring campaigns on behalf of startups in the UK, the US, Argentina, Ecuador, Czech Republic, Germany, Nepal, the Philippines.

On top of its recruiting services, Gibson’s firm also offers growth consulting through investor-readiness coaching programs and introductions to key investors.

Through its outsourced recruiting and growth consulting services, Funded.club gives founding teams the expert help they need without worrying their investors or breaking the bottom line. Thanks to Gibson’s leadership, Funded.club understands the ins and outs of scaling high-growth businesses successfully, which is a challenging balancing act.

At a time when 90% of new companies fail, Funded.club is disrupting the status quo and giving a new class of startups a better chance to succeed.