YFM Equity Partners has led a £3 million investment round into talent tech innovator inploi.
The London startup, founded by Matthew de la Hey and Alex Hanson-Smith in 2016 to serve the recruitment needs of the hospitality and leisure sector through a marketplace, was forced to pivot hard to enterprise SaaS when COVID wiped out its customer base and pipeline.
With customers including Compass Group, wagamama, Gail’s and NHS trusts, inploi has facilitated millions of applications across over 70,000 vacancies since that pivot.
It has previously raised multiple rounds of funding from friends, family and angels.
inploi’s platform works alongside existing applicant tracking systems to streamline candidate journeys, reduce drop-off and enable faster, more effective hiring decisions.
The fresh investment will support the company’s next phase of commercial and product growth, including building out sales and marketing capabilities, expanding the team, and accelerating development of Talent Agents – a new suite of AI-driven hiring assistants designed to automate sourcing, screening, scheduling and candidate communications.
“Employers are under huge pressure to hire at scale while delivering a better experience for candidates,” said South African De la Hey, who serves as CEO.
“inploi has proven there’s a better way to do this, and we’re seeing strong demand from organisations that want smarter, more efficient recruitment. YFM’s backing allows us to accelerate our growth, invest further in our product and scale the business internationally.”
By reducing manual task load and enabling more personalised engagement at scale, the technology aims to free talent teams to focus on higher-value interactions and better hiring outcomes.
Roshan Puri, partner at YFM Equity Partners, added: “inploi is addressing a real and growing challenge for enterprise employers.
“The team has built a compelling product with clear customer ROI and strong momentum in the UK and US. We’re delighted to support inploi on its scale-up journey.”
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