Over the last decade, many companies have entrusted their hiring needs to applicant tracking systems. The global talent management software market is booming and expected to reach $25.36 billion over the next eight years as an increasing number of hiring managers tap into databases of jobs platforms like Naukri.com and foundit (earlier Monster.com) to fill vacancies.
However, finding candidates with the requisite qualifications and skills can still be a prolonged process.
Savita Srivastava observed the gap in the recruitment process during her 10 years of experience working in business management, team management, and pan-India hiring across sectors. She realised resumes alone were insufficient for recruiters to make informed decisions.
Along with her IIM Calcutta batchmate Satish Dadi, who previously worked in technical hiring and as a techno-functional consultant with GE Healthcare, she founded in 2019, which focuses on skilling, mentoring, and hiring needs of companies.
After gaining insights into the recruitment technology landscape, they founded KonnectNXT in 2023 to replace traditional resumes and address recruitment process shortcomings.
The Hyderabad-based startup provides companies with detailed and verified profiles enriched with data sourced from various platforms.
It currently has five employees.
AI-assisted tech for data utilisation
KonnectNXT is a B2B AI-powered software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that optimises talent databases for recruiters and offers data points of job seekers extracted from open web platforms such as social media portals like and , and networking sites like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and .
“By creating detailed profiles with auto profile strength extracted from various platforms, we aim to reduce manually intensive tasks by more than 80%,” Srivastava, Co-founder and CEO of KonnectNXT, tells YourStory.
The platform streamlines the initial screening process, providing resumes for the best-fit candidates with detailed insights after conducting due diligence. The company claims it enables profile creation in under 30 seconds with minimal manual input.
The system uses AI to update and reuse existing databases, ensuring their relevance and legitimacy before presenting profiles to recruiters.
“Our integration system reads and creates a detailed 360-degree profile of a resume from a database player, adding background verification pointers and recency flags,” Srivastava explains.
“This holistic view provides recruiters with the best matches with recent and verified profiles. We verify data on official government and private APIs to ensure accuracy,” she adds.
The platform also offers AI-powered skill matching based on job descriptions to filter relevant job applications, with a 90% resume read accuracy.
KonnectNXT utilises proprietary code and GPT technology to assess candidates’ skills and provide detailed ratings.
It conducts background checks through third-party services on candidate information including employment history, education, and potential red flags to ensure compliance with labour laws.
To uphold data security and privacy, and compliance with Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, it only sources information from profiles in the public domain.
Business model
Bootstrapped with Rs 19.5 lakh from personal savings, KonnectNXT generates revenue through fees for integration, profile creation, and quarterly maintenance based on cloud usage. Integration costs range from Rs 1-1.5 lakh, profile creation costs between Rs 20-35 per profile, and background verification is charged for Rs 100-500.
The company earned a revenue of Rs 10 lakh in FY23-24, with a 30% quarter-on-quarter growth, and aims to reach Rs 1 crore revenue this year to turn profitable.
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The startup has processed over a lakh profiles to date and currently caters to eight customers, including Campus, InterCell, Tech Mahindra and Leo1.
However, the journey hasn’t been easy. The startup faced numerous challenges initially, such as scaling the platform to handle large volumes of data and integrating with various job portals and databases.
“We aim to encourage user adoption and engagement by building trust and loyalty among recruiters and job seekers through effective marketing and user experience strategies,” she mentioned.
Future plans
Going ahead, KonnectNXT plans to use blockchain technology to create decentralised and verified profiles, enhancing security and accuracy in profile verification.
“It will be a tokenised system via a big tech firm’s support,” Srivastava added, saying the startup could not reveal the firm’s name as the talks were still ongoing.
KonnectNXT has ambitious goals for the next five years—process 5 crore profiles, reach a revenue of Rs 100 crore, and go for an initial public offering (IPO). However, it faces stiff competition, directly or indirectly from players such as , , and .
According to Srivastava, what sets it apart from traditional job boards and recruitment platforms is its focus on leveraging AI to automate the initial screening process, provide detailed candidate profiles including auto-profile strength extraction, and ensure that only relevant applications are presented to recruiters.
The company, which currently has a five-member team and operates in edtech and HRtech arenas, plans to expand into fintech and matrimonial sectors as it looks to make its profile processing solutions sector-agnostic.
KonnectNXT is looking to raise a $300,000 seed round to support hiring, marketing, product completion, and scale. It has already secured commitments totalling Rs 60 lakh and a $250,000 grant from Hedera, a public network and governing body for decentralised applications.
Edited by Kanishk Singh
