Glints secures Series B funding with Hong Kong expansion on the cards

Singapore based tech-enabled recruitment and career development platform Glints has secured its Series B funding, raising US$6.8 million (approx HK$53.3 million). Led by Southeast Asia venture capital firm Monk’s Hill Ventures, it has plans to expand to the Hong Kong market.Investors participating in this round included MindWorks Ventures (an early investor of Hong Kong's Lalamove), and returning investors Fresco Capital and Wavemaker Partners. Glints stated that the success of its Series B funding was built on a strong year with revenue growth increasing six times over. This latest investment will be used to grow the company’s product and engineering teams and expand into both Hong Kong's and Vietnam's markets to provide recruitment solutions for clients and job candidates.“We decided to enter the Hong Kong market after addressing the challenge of extremely high local recruitment cost, while the average salary of Southeast Asia talents is three to five times lower than Hong Kong,” said Oswald Yeo, CEO and co-founder of Glints. Glints recognised that many Hong Kong companies find it tough to manage the costly and lengthy traditional headhunting and recruitment process. The industry average time-to-fill is 40 – 50 days, with fees set at 20-30% of a candidate’s annual salary. This weight is especially felt in the hiring of junior to mid-level technology-related positions. Aiming to tackle this challenge, Glints has launched a recruitment practice focused on helping Hong Kong companies identify tech talents in Southeast Asia. The practice will source candidates and facilitates hiring through seasoned recruiters empowered by matching algorithms and platform technologies, to reduce recruitment cost by automating certain recruitment processes such as candidate sourcing, matching and follow-ups.Peng T. Ong, managing partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures said, “Employers are struggling to fill the vacancies with a shortage of skilled talent worldwide. Glints has successfully solved the pain point from enterprises and job candidates by offering a flexible career solution for them. The traction and strong growth we've seen is very exciting, which is why we decided to partner with Glints and lead the investment of their Series B round.”Glints currently takes a full-stack approach to recruit tech talents and build offshore tech teams with local HR support in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Brunei. The company has over 500 thousand members worldwide, with clients include AIA, FWD Insurance and GoJek. Glints is also able to provide office spaces and can handles taxes, insurances, and payroll processing at cost.The company stated that it is confident to partner with more local enterprises in the future, and is already working with multiple startups in Hong Kong to build their tech teams in Southeast Asia.