The former CEO of Orka Technology Group has announced details of his new business venture just over a month after administrators were called into the Manchester-based hiring platform.
On March 15th 2024 administrators Lisa Moxon and Chris Barrett, of Dow Schofield Watts Business Recovery, were appointed to Orka Technology Group.
The news came just three over years after the company announced an eye-watering £29m investment round.
Orka, formerly known as Broadstone, was launched in 2016 by James Doyle, Nick Groves and Tom Pickersgill, who shared a belief that the traditional recruitment and staffing agency model was broken.
Over the years Orka launched a series of tech solutions – Orka Works, Orka Pay and crucially Orka Check – that appealed to an increasingly tech-enabled workforce seeking a flexible work life.
Now Pickersgill, a former professional footballer with Morecambe, has announced Orka Check has been renamed Deploi.
Writing on LinkedIn on Monday, he said: “Today we start our mission to make onboarding and background checking for companies and employees as fast and easy as possible.”
Pickersgill, who is listed as the CEO and sole director of the new company, includes a link to Deploi’s new website, which states: “In 2023, Orka Check was bought by Deploi Technologies Ltd, with the intention of becoming market leading software that supports companies from the first moment they need to recruit, to the first moment on site.
“Fast forward to now, Deploi is built by people that use it every day. The candidate flow is shaped by thousands of interactions and iterations to be easily used and understood by our audience. We build experiences that our users love.”
According to Companies House, Deploi Technologies Ltd was incorporated on February 28th, 2024.
BusinessCloud has contacted Pickersgill for a comment.
However, in an interview with Infologue Security News, he was quoted as saying: “We are thrilled to unveil our new identity as Deploi. This rebranding represents a strategic initiative to align our brand with our core values of innovation, reliability, and efficiency.
“As Deploi, the market leader in BS7858 background checking software, we are poised to embark on a new chapter of growth and innovation, continuing to redefine industry standards and exceed the expectations of our clients.”
Orka Technology Group, which moved into the impressive ABC Building on Manchester’s Quay Street in 2022, ran into trouble in 2023 as it struggled to get traction from large customers and partners.
Like many other tech firms, Orka found it a lot harder to raise new funds and the company went into administration.