JFDI.Asia startup Tribehired raises US $ 560k in a funding round led by TNF Ventures

Tribehired.com, a Malaysian social recruitment website founded by Devan Singaram, announced that it has closed around $ 560K of seed funding. This round was led by TNF Ventures (TNF) through the Technology Incubation Scheme under the Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) within the Prime Minister’s Office. The round was supported by Singapore angel investors Ben Ball and Ben Chew.The investment will be used to grow Tribehired’s team to expand both the number of job candidates on the system and the range of businesses using the service. According to the founders, Tribehired has the potential to grow fast because it incentivises ordinary people to recommend job opportunities at companies where their friends would fit. Another startup leveraging the viral potential in India is startup WhistleTalk.

Tribehired, a 8 member team is currently in intensive beta testing with several thousand users in Malaysia providing feedback around real job opportunities. Shirley Wong, Managing Partner at TNF Ventures, said: “Recruitment is an evergreen industry but it is also ripe for disruption. There are others in this space but Tribehired’s team convinced us that they really understand the psychology of social networks and job seekers better than anyone else.”

Previously, Tribehired received pre-seed funding from Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd, a government agency under the Ministry of Finance, Malaysia. Tribehired was also a participant in the JFDI-Innov8 2012 accelerator program operated by JFDI.Asia and the program for 2013 has two Indian startups. Tribehired plans to open up in India by early next year.

In total, 7 out of the 11 start-ups from the 2011 batch have now raised USD 3.12m.