Bulgaria-based nPloy bags €2M to transform the recruitment market in Europe: Know more

Sofia, Bulgaria-based nPloy, a job matching platform, announced that it has raised €2M in a fresh round of funding.

nPloy, which claims to have attracted more than 85,000 candidates and 500 employers in the Bulgarian and Romanian markets, says it now aims to expand geographically. The company’s goal is to expand into new markets in Central and Eastern Europe.

The company says that the reception on the site has been remarkable since it recently debuted on the Romanian market. By the end of 2023, the platform’s creators want to have expanded to ten additional nations and have a profitable business model.

Investors in this round

The investment round was led by Sofia-based investment firm Morningside Hill.

Pavel Velkov, managing partner at Morningside Hill, says, “We invested in nPloy because we believe in the urgent need of transforming the recruitment market in Europe. Every good idea needs a great business plan and people who are passionate about its implementation, and nPloy has exactly that.”

Morningside Hill Capital Management is a privately owned investment firm. The company has interests in venture capital, private equity, hedge funds and mutual funds. Morningside Hill says it uses the value investing methodology across all of its strategies, which aims to create long-term investor value by utilising meticulous in-depth fundamental research and concentrating on investment aspects that can be measured, quantified, and monitored.

Offering an alternative way to find a career opportunity

Founded in 2018 by Konstantin Tsonev and Tsvetoslav Zahariev, nPloy is a job matching platform whose algorithm only presents job listings to individuals that meet all their requirements, including income.

Co-founder Konstantin Tsonev says, “Mass online job posting platforms, not only in the Balkans but also in Europe, are often clumsy and inefficient. This is exactly what we want to change with nPloy, having successfully built an innovative job-matching platform based on the dating app’s models. We’ve replaced the standard pre-screening process with an AI algorithm allowing users to see only vacancies relevant to their experience and requirements, and  employers to source the right candidates more efficiently.”

The platform offers a selection procedure that it claims is open and effective. While personal information like names, gender, age, and present employers are not disclosed, employers are given access to each candidate’s professional experience and qualifications. That guarantees maximum objectivity and fairness of the process to avoid unconscious bias. Employers can also filter and assess the market viability of each position they intend to post by accessing the anonymous candidate pool of all users.

The company claims that it is the only platform where users can receive an immediate response on whether their application has been granted or rejected. When two people express mutual interest, much like in dating apps, a chat window comes up and a video interview may be booked. A recent update of the smartphone app also gives users the option to follow customised news, join groups with other like-minded individuals, and participate in a variety of online career-related activities.

Maria Petrova, director of business development at nPloy, says, “Job finding doesn’t have to be such a complicated and slow process when there are modern technologies to solve these problems. In a market with low unemployment rates and growth in job openings, candidates don’t want to waste time in a couple of interviews just to find out that their financial expectations don’t even meet, for example. Any difficulty, delay and inefficient processes turn down a large number of applicants. This is where nPloy comes in – you create a quick profile and you can immediately apply or wait for an employer to send you a match request for a suitable position.”

Currently, the company’s clients include BIC, SAP, Lidl, and Postbank, among others.