Cross-border hiring platform CBREX gets $200K angel funding

Cross-border hiring platform CBREX has raised around $200,000 (Rs 1.3 crore) in angel funding from three individual investors, a co-founder of the Mumbai-based startup said on Friday.

CBREX raised funding from entrepreneurs Prahlad Rao and Sundara Rajan and angel investor Vikram Chachra by selling a stake of about 10 per cent, co-founder Gautam Sinha told VCCircle.

"We will use the funding to build our platform, hire the core team, and get initial members on our platform," said Sinha.

Sinha started CBREX, owned by Expat Naukri Pvt Ltd, in May this year along with Karunjay Anand and Sanjeev Punwani.

CBREX is a members-only exchange platform for recruiting firms that facilitates the hiring of a candidate outside the home country of a company. The startup has 10 employees, of which six are in India and four are part-time employees, including one each from China, the US and Dubai.

So far, the company has facilitated two high-level hirings in the services and logistics sector through the offline mode. A transaction takes 60 to 90 days to close. The revenue earned -- average cost of hiring is between $8,000 and $15,000 per transaction -- is split into three parts. Of the total, 50 per cent goes to the supplier, 30 per cent to the demand recruiter, and 20 per cent goes to CBREX.

The company's online platform went live in the first week of November.

News of the company's fundraising was first reported by DealStreetAsia.

CBREX is present in 53 countries, and has about 250 members on its platform. The startup said it aims to have 100,000 recruiting firms on its platform by the end of 2017, and is working towards having six lakh members from across the globe in the next three-and-a-half years. It expects about 85 per cent members from outside India and the remaining from within the country.

The company is also looking to raise its or pre-Series A or Series A round by the middle of next year. "We are yet to decide on the next funding round, but if we decide for full Series A the amount would be between $1.5 million and $2 million, or $1 million if it's pre-Series A," Sinha said.

After the Series A, CBREX aims to set up an office in the US as "it is going to be the biggest market for the company," according to Sinha. In the next 12 months, the company said it plans to hire five employees in its technology team that will be based out of Bangalore, and four employees outside India.