Shine set to relocate to County Durham and create 19 new jobs following funding injection to fuel the growth of its video interview technology business.
Shine Interview Ltd (”Shine”), a video-based recruitment/HR Tech SaaS platform, has received a £1.3 million funding package. The transaction comprises a £500,000 investment from the Finance Durham Fund, managed by Maven Capital Partners (”Maven”), established by Durham County Council and overseen by Business Durham, and a £500,000 investment from the North East Venture Fund, managed by Mercia Asset Management plc (”Mercia”) and supported by the European Regional Development Fund, a £300,000 from Mercia’s EIS Funds. The investment will enable the business to embark on a programme of growth to invest in sales and marketing and R&D, and relocate to County Durham, creating 20 new jobs in the area in the next 18 months.
Shine is a fully customisable, highly secure, enterprise level video-based recruitment/ HR Tech platform that facilitates a remote first end-to-end recruitment process for enterprises, SMEs, and recruitment firms. It does this primarily through live and pre-recorded video interviewing, alongside a suite of recruitment tools, including scheduling, diary management, video CVs and video-based engagement tools.
The business aims to make the recruitment process easier, whilst improving the candidate and client journey, and the platform has been proven to cut the time and cost of hiring by up to 70%. Shine already supports an impressive client list including Royal Navy, RAF, Reed Specialist Recruitment, Capita Resourcing, University of London, Atom Bank and the NHS, and supports users in 85 countries.
With new hybrid/remote working patterns emerging triggered by the Covid19 pandemic it is estimated that up to 40% of the UK’s working population will work this way over the long term, meaning new tools are required to facilitate virtual recruitment processes. Rapid increases in user adoption of video technologies, driven not only by the pandemic but also by the growth of personal video streaming within social media and office environments, mean video interviews have now been normalised by candidates.
The talent management/recruitment software market is well established within the UK, with an estimated market size of £11bn. Within this, one of the fastest growing markets is the talent assessment and hiring software market, with estimates showing a pathway to a £5bn market size over the next three years.
Shine was founded in 2016 by experienced technology executive David Copple, who has over 20 years’ experience in the SaaS space and was previously the CTO of EduTech platform The Test Factory, where he helped to successfully scale the business to an exit in 2014. The business also benefits from the strategic input of Chairman Joe Slavin, the former CEO of fish4jobs and MD of Monster.co,uk.
David Nixon, Senior Investment Manager at Maven, said: ”Shine has carved out a solid niche in the marketplace with a well-defined position. The business has enjoyed strong growth and is well placed to scale its technology and grow its team following its relocation to County Durham. David and the team have built an impressive business and it’s great to work with the North East Fund to provide a finance package that supports the company’s ambitious expansion plans.”
David Copple, Founder of Shine, said: ”The recruitment landscape has changed over the last two years with the war for talent intensifying and hybrid and remote working becoming the norm. As a result, demand for our video based tools has soared and this investment will allow us to accelerate our growth plans significantly whilst bringing further innovations to our already world class platform. I’m hugely excited by this next stage of our journey.”
Cllr James Rowlandson, Portfolio holder for resources, investment and assets at Durham County Council, said: ”We are delighted to have been able to invest in Shine through Finance Durham, and also to assist the company to move to County Durham. It’s fantastic to support this innovative business as it grows into this expanding area of recruitment. We encourage more businesses to follow suit and access the funding opportunities we have available through our Business Durham team to create more and better jobs and contribute towards a strong competitive economy for the future.
