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Image credits: Charlotte Melkert and Fleur Melkert

Equalture, a Rotterdam-based HRtech startup, announced that it has raised €2.75M in a funding round led by serial entrepreneur Pieter Schoen’s Shoe Investments, and Dutch VC firm 4impact.

Equalture claims the capital injection will help it to grow its international customer base and expand its test library of game-based neuro-assessments. 

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How was Equalture born?

Twin sisters Charlotte Melkert and Fleur Melkert, who owned a successful recruitment agency, founded Equalture in 2018 after witnessing a series of biases in the hiring process. 

According to the founders, candidates are unfairly judged by potential employers based on their resume and appearance rather than their personality, passions and talents.

Charlotte Melkert, Co-Founder of Equalture, says, ‘’In this era of rapid technological innovations that we are living, it is unacceptable that hiring decisions are still based upon subjective first impressions that we allow our own biases to create. The most ironic and sad part of this story is that we all know that CVs aren’t predictive of hiring success and heavily increase biases, but still, we all stick to this screening method. Just because old habits are difficult to break through.”

Equalture: What you need to know

Equalture is on a mission to shape the world of unbiased hiring for SMBs, by gamifying the hiring process. The platform helps companies make a hiring decision based on neuroscience instead of a gut feeling. 

The company has built a library of scientifically-validated gamified

assessments that allow companies to know the cognitive skills, cultural preferences, and behaviours of both their candidates and their current team. 

The Dutch company also uses its gamified assessments to hire its own employees. Currently, the company employs 31 people from 19 different nationalities.  52 per cent of its workforce are women.

Investors

Pieter Schoen, owner of Shoe Investment and serial entrepreneur says, “From the first moment, I was charmed by the twins Charlotte and Fleur, and the CTO, Jaap. I admire how the girls managed to grow Equalture so quickly and professionally in times of COVID-19, and I am fully confident this is just the beginning.”

Ali Najafbagy, Managing Partner at 4impact says, ‘’Our partnership with Equalture started with our first investment in February 2020. Since then, the company has achieved strong growth and we are proud of the impactful work that the team delivers on a daily basis. With our follow-up investment, we support Equalture’s unique tech solution and focus on United Nations Sustainable Goals nr 5 (Gender Equality) and nr 9 (Reduced inequalities).’’