Unitive Secures $7.5 Million In Series A Funding To Offer Hiring Platform That Removes Unconscious Bias

WOODSIDE, Calif., Nov. 12, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Unitive, an analytics startup that operationalizes best practices in hiring, today announced it has completed a $7.5 million Series A round of financing led by Ignition Partners, with additional investments from Kapor Capital, Webb Investment Network, Floodgate and Correlation Ventures. The funding will be used to further develop the technology and amplify customer support and marketing.

Unitive is an analytic decision-support system, delivered as a cloud service, which automatically guides hiring managers through a rigorous, impartial and expedited "best fit" hiring decision process, removing many time-consuming meetings from the hiring process and freeing the hiring manager to focus on the information that matters most.

Today, hiring is characterized by stress, tedium, time commitment, and distraction from real work. The result is what's described in "Thinking, Fast and Slow"—relying on automatic, gut-level processing to make a decision that should require rational, informed thought.

The initial Unitive offering comprises a content management system for creating and managing job postings, a system for resume review, and an interview management system. Each component on its own reduces the time and energy required for the respective portion of the hiring process and, together, allow the hiring manager to expedite hiring decisions while maintaining confidence that they are getting the absolute best fit for the role.

Unconscious bias analytics is an emerging software field that seeks to filter out social and emotional factors in economic impact decision making. For hiring, unconscious bias analytics is used to help hiring managers quickly see the important qualities of a candidate and move to a more accurate hiring decision.

Unitive's CEO and founder, Laura Mather, is an acclaimed subject matter expert in unconscious bias, and holds a PhD in computer science and applied math. Dr. Mather previously worked for the National Security Agency, developed cybersecurity solutions for eBay and was cofounder of Silver Tail Systems, a security software company acquired by RSA in 2012.

"High growth organizations understand that their most important asset is talent," said Mather.  "When organizations don't remove noise from signal in the hiring process, it leads to unintended staffing mistakes. The result over time is a deteriorating company culture that's lost its essence. This is a problem we can help attenuate for companies that want to maintain their growth while improving new hire fit and enhancing corporate culture."   

As part of this financing, Nick Sturiale, managing partner at Ignition, will join the Unitive board of directors. "We see a shift in how companies are thinking about applied analytics to remove unconscious bias in several areas of economic decision making, especially staffing," Sterile said. "We see Unitive as a game changer. It enables companies to scale and improve the caliber of their workforce simultaneously."

"As organizations continue to strive for the best and the brightest, it's going to be increasingly important for hiring managers to quickly hone in on the most important aspects of job candidates," said Mather. "Unitive was developed to ensure that hiring managers can execute quickly on new hires while increasing the precision of job fit. This is the next area of revolutionary innovation in hiring and we are ecstatic to be part of that journey with our customers."

ABOUT UNITIVE

Unitive is a talent analytics technology, helping corporations build diverse, innovative, productive teams. Unitive goes beyond training and reinforces behavioral change in real-time. Unitive transforms theoretical ideas about unconscious bias into pragmatic solutions that build stronger teams.

MORE ABOUT LAURA MATHER

Laura Mather, PhD, built her career creating software solutions for organizations like the National Security Agency, eBay, and her own cybersecurity startup Silver Tail Systems which she sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. She has a PhD in Computer Science and a B.S. in Applied Mathematics.  Mather is driven by her passion for applying technology to the world's toughest problems, and she is confident that a software-backed solution is the change we need to move toward more diverse, more inclusive workplaces.  In 2013, Laura was named to the top 50 Future Digital Strategists for Corporate Boards by Agenda magazine. In 2012, she was named number 16 on Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business list, number six on Fortune's list of Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs and number nine on Business Insider's list of Most Powerful Women Engineers.

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