Atma, an Indonesian startup that wants to make job hunting less painful, announced today it has raised $5 million in pre-seed funding led by AC Ventures, with participation from Global Founders Capital. Strategic investors in the round included founders and executives from GoTo Group, Advance Intelligence Group, Ula, Lummo, Kopi Kenangan, Sampoerna Strategic, MMS Group and Xiami.
The funding will be used for hiring, with plans to expand Atma’s headcount from about 30 employees to 100, product development and its go-to-market strategy.
The platform targets the lower and middle-income segment of the working-age population in Indonesia, or people earning less than 10 million IDR a month (or about $700 USD). Atma says up to over 100 million people in Indonesia fit into this category.
Edy Tan, co-founder and CEO of Atma, formerly worked as vice president of driver income at Gojek.
Tan told TechCrunch that part of his responsibilities at GoJek included improving drivers’ livelihoods in a sustainable way. During the peak of the pandemic, driver income dropped by 80% on average. As a result, Tan began looking for other way for drivers to make revenue. During that time, he said, “I discovered that drivers generally wanted income stability more so than higher income.” Intrigued, he began to look at the economic opportunity landscape for the lower and middle income segment.
“It soon became apparent to me that the job market for the lower and middle income segment is fundamentally broken and ripe for innovation when most job seekers described their job search experience as emotionally traumatizing and companies often described their candidate search experience as a random walk,” he said.
For job seekers, Atma is building a mobile app. When they start applying for jobs, job seekers will go through a screening process, including their qualifications, skills and cultural fit. Atma’s app will also provide them with real-time job application updates, so job seekers don’t suffer being ghosted after submitting an application. For employers, Atma makes the hiring process easier by using data to screen, assess and sort candidates so they know the best people to interview.
Atma will also include community features, like career development programs, peer-to-peer learning and the chance to meet with other job seekers.
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