Gloat, which uses AI to connect employees with internal work, raises $57M

Gloat, a platform that meshes AI with big data to give enterprises visibility into the skills across their workforce and “monitor, track, and reallocate” individuals, today announced it has raised $57 million in a series C round of funding.

Founded in 2015, Gloat serves companies such as PepsiCo, Nestlé, Unilever, HSBC, and Novartis with a”talent marketplace” that surfaces organically generated data to help businesses fill roles from their internal workforce while connecting them with mentorships and other new opportunities.

How it works

Companies connect Gloat to their internal enterprise tools — such as BI, HR, and learning management systems — while employees build profiles by uploading their resumes, connecting their LinkedIn profiles, and so on. Gloat can then deliver tailored development content based on specific projects and career paths. From a business perspective, managers can see exactly what gaps they have and what skills they have (or lack) and anticipate demands well in advance.

“The great thing about the talent marketplace model is that the data arises organically on both sides of the marketplace,” Gloat CEO and cofounder Ben Reuveni told VentureBeat. “On the employee side, it comes from the daily use and interaction with the platform. They’re incentivized to share their skills and aspirations on their profiles so that our talent marketplace platform can provide them with suggested matches of meaningful work, development opportunities, and career paths aligned to those skills and aspirations.”

Above: Gloat: Analytics

Workers can also share their availability to take on new projects or coach new staff members, or even whether they’re willing to relocate. It’s all about arming businesses with the data to get the most out of their existing workforce before looking externally, with the engine that automates the connections powered by AI techniques such as natural language processing (NLP).

“From the managers’ side, the skills and capabilities they enter as prerequisites for roles, gigs, and projects are also captured,” Reuveni explained. “Gloat’s AI learns the unique associations between titles, roles, and skills that exist inside of a company. So we get a deep understanding of the work itself and how job titles and roles can actually be broken down to the task and skill level.”

Progression

Gloat had previously raised around $35 million, and with another $57 million from backers including Accel, Intel Capital, Eight Roads, Magma Venture Partners, and PICO Partners, the New York-based company is well-positioned to capitalize on recent growth, which it says has seen its customer base grow fourfold over the past year.

“COVID’s proven to everyone that moving talent around to increased areas of demand, in real time, can truly make or break an organization,” Reuveni said. “But even without an international pandemic, increased digitization and disruption more or less guarantee that the reality businesses at any scale operate in today is fluid and unpredictable. For employees, that very same increase in fluidity promises a steady, unending supply of growth opportunities, which ensure they’ll stay interested and engaged. The company ceases to be a career stepping-stone and becomes the arena for their career progression.”