Startup tech firm sets growth goals

KALIBRR Ventures Inc., a Philippines-based technology job-matching startup, is setting aggressive growth targets here in line with a broader goal to expand abroad and eventually challenge large technology players like United States-based LinkedIn Corp.

Kalibrr, which is far backed by about $2 million in funding from Filipino and Silicon Valley-based investors, had its commercial launch yesterday, around the season when fresh graduates seek employment opportunities.

The company is led by entrepreneurs Paul Rivera as CEO and chief operating officer Dexter Ligot-Gordon.

The pair described the company’s growth plans during the event, including hitting one million job seekers and 20,000 employers using Kalibrr by the end of 2015. It currently has 65,000 job seekers on the platform and 3,000 companies, including conglomerates like San Miguel Corp. and Ayala Corp.

“What we want is to become the next LinkedIn,” Rivera, referring to the popular social network for professionals, said at the sidelines of the launch yesterday.

Kalibrr differentiates itself from rivals with its skill assessment platform, which allows employers to determine a particular candidate’s skill set through over 50 industry validated assessments. This significantly cuts screening time for companies, it said.

The platform also allows companies to directly get in touch with candidates they like, although this comes with a fee of P50 per candidate, and is currently the company’s primary income stream. Other services like posting jobs and allowing employers t o search their database of candidates are free of charge, said Ligot-Gordon.

“You [employers] only pay for the candidates you want to contact,” Rivera said. “We are upending the business model for jobs platforms in the Philippines.”

The company is closing a new funding round, its third, but officials declined to elaborate. The money would help support Kalibrr’s domestic operations while paving the way for its international expansion, which is likely to start in Southeast Asia.

“The plan is to bring Kalibrr to the rest of the region and the rest of the world,” he said.