Sydney Startup The Martec raises $8m for AI talent marketing tech

A talent marketing and recruitment content technology company powered by artificial intelligence (AI) has raised $8 million in a round led by AS1, as Sydney-based The Martec looks to accelerate global expansion of an offering that has already enticed the likes of Marriott, Adobe, Siemens and Telstra (ASX: TLS).

The round also attracted participation from Australian VC stalwart AirTree Ventures, which was drawn to founder and CEO Raaj Govintharajah's experience and understanding of customer problems in recruitment and talent retention.

Having previously founded tech recruitment firm Salient which he led for a decade until 2017, Govintharajah set up The Martec after seeing a gap in the market where AI would be key to changing how organisations could be more efficient with their talent marketing.  

The technology itself has a wide range of applications including an ability to find an organisation's top employee advocates, creating authentic videos and written content with employee input, distributing timely content across websites, recruitment teams and social channels, and enriching all content from job descriptions to career pages.

"Generative AI is hot right now, but the solutions that will win are the ones supporting organisations solving real world problems," the founder explains.

"We’re excited to be working with so many iconic brands to show how AI can be used to scale authentic talent communications. 

"We’re using AI as an enabler to bring out the trusted, ‘human’ side of these organisations, directly from their employees. A more powerful angle than traditional, branded content. I see every enterprise organisation needing to be a part of this new category we’ve pioneered: AI-powered content for talent marketing. We’re hiring on all fronts ourselves right now."

The full-suite launch only took place in January this year, but The Martec has been able to already build a large stable of prominent customers domestically and globally for the platform including Optus, Allianz, CSL (ASX: CSL), HelloFresh, Mondelez, EY, ResMed (ASX: RMD), Coles (ASX: COL), Sainsbury’s, Workday and Vodafone.

"Our teams and offices across USA, UK and Australia are excited for what's to come as this funding will help us accelerate the uptake of our technology by global enterprise brands," says Govintharajah.

"Aside from our market opportunity, I’m personally excited to help organisations with improved authenticity in their talent communications. It has never been more important to democratise employees' voices – regardless of race, age, location and job type."

With the company notching 3.5-times year-on-year revenue growth, AirTree Ventures partner Jackie Vullinghs highlights The Martec's impressive traction since the product launch in January, claiming this is testament to how well its solution resonates with worldwide enterprise customers.

"Raaj’s deep experience both in marketing and recruitment allowed him to authentically understand customer problems, and see the opportunity to solve those problems in a new way using recent technological advances," Vullinghs says.

"After 25 years of co-founding, investing and partnering with high growth companies, it really boils down to great people and talent," adds AS1 partner Conrad Yiu.

"We are proud to support Raaj’s vision and his talented management team in the next phase of their journey, which ultimately is about helping enterprises find, attract and retain great people," says Yiu.