Indore-based Talent Marketplace Supersourcing raised $500K seed funding
- by: Jatin Chaudhary
Our friends at Supersourcing have an exciting update.
The founders of Supersourcing Aditi & Mayank were earlier featured in our Spouse Entrepreneurs series.
The Supersourcing story
How it all started
The story traces back to about ten years ago when Mayank, a tech enthusiast, went to Bangalore after having two failed startups to learn how to run a successful startup.
He had worked in Tech Mahindra and had devoted three years to learn what to do rightand how to run things the right way.
“You can’t learn swimming by reading, so I decided to build again but I didn’t have enough money to experiment with learnings that come with a cost. I wanted to build products for startups to help them with their engineering needs. if some of these ideas become successful, we will also learn how to grow the startups in the market” said Mayank, the co-founder of Supersourcing.
He started EngineerBabu, a Tech Agency that focuses on building products for startups.“Plenty of people advised us to not work with startups because they don’t have money;and that they are more demanding. I was told that if I work with them, I might have toshut my company down one day” said Aditi Chaurasia,the co-founder of Supersourcing.
Mistakes are the best stepping stone to learn
In our experience, good intentions and hard work paid off. Many startups received investment capital and a few of them even become unicorns! Working with hundreds of startups, they figured out that the biggest factor contributing to the success or failure of a startup is not an idea but it comes down to its right execution.
The right execution needs the right team to be available when needed. Over the last year,100 startups became unicorns and raised billions of dollars. So, this shows that the capital required is available in the market. These days, you can get anything you want with a single click such as groceries, medicines, or food. But, the engineers required to build these products have become hard to find.
Many established companies offer ESOPs, sexy perks, crazy packages, fancy cars like BMWs, and many more. But, it looks like the talent war is never going to end.
How the pandemic revolutionized the working population
After the pandemic, remote work had become the new normal. Global companies started betting big on Indian talent mainly because the IT talent outsourcing industry amounts to trillions of dollars. This industry has also experienced rapid growth over the past two years. Platforms such as Turing and Andela (which have already made it to the list of unicorns) are trying to solve a few of these industry problems. However, 94% of the market is still unorganised. Discovery of the right talent and trustable talent providers is time-consuming with challenges like long notice periods, no single source of credibility, and inefficient collaboration processes. Although social media is filled with recruiters and potential candidates, finding the best match is still an ongoing challenge.
Say goodbye to old-school hiring
The HR team often struggles as they try to keep up with the hiring pool through email. Email is built for communication and not for collaboration. With five employees trying to use the same email inbox, a ton of important information slips through the cracks.
The pre-hiring process still uses traditional resumes that have no insights. It usually has candidates answering to the question“tell me about yourself ”which doesn’t reflect how they can create and impact or contribute the best to a company’s needs.
The selection process of candidates still depend on variables like the interviewer's mood and the available engineering bandwidth. Having multiple decision-makers, too many rounds, and negotiations hampers the effectiveness of the hiring process. Despite offering a good package, 80% of senior candidates decided to go another way.
The founders of EngineerBabu identified the gap between this demand and supply. After 8years of learning and raising funds from Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and Dr. Ritesh Malik, they pivoted to a platform named Supersourcing.
Supersourcing is a talent marketplace for hiring remote engineers on contract and managing them efficiently!
Supersourcing’s funding journey
“I had a dream that whenever I raise funds, I will raise them first from Vijay Shekhar Sharma. The day I got a confirmation from him for his investment, I was so excited that I accidentally used shampoo instead of toothpaste while brushing my teeth in the morning; bubbles were coming out.When I started the company, one of our investors asked me to change the name of“EngineerBabu”. I then went to a tattoo parlour and got the name permanently inked onme. This time, I changed myself :). Every year, I used to reflect on how stupid I was. But,now I understand that they were all of my learnings.”-Mayank Singh
As of today, Supersourcing has helped 28 Unicorns, 70+ Global VC fund portfolio companies, 32 YC-funded companies, and established enterprises such as Uber, Zoom, NextDoor, Instacart, PayTm, Meta, Adani, Amazon, Google, Stripe, Dunzo, Swiggy, Khatabook, Stage, Appointy, Sequoia Capital, and Shopkirana to hire and manage remote engineers.
With a pool of talent providers including 3200+ IT agencies and 15,000+ engineers, Supersourcing achieved a $3M ARR in just about 15 months.
Current Round Investors: $500K
● KubeVC; 5 unicorns in their portfolio (Dubai)
● Nitin Sethi, Chief Digital Officer, Founding Leader of Adani Digital Labs
● Nikhil Sharma, a previous investor, also invested in this round. (USA)
● Rajesh Gaur; Head of Investment Solutions @ Zoe Financial (USA)
● Saurabh Gupta; Stripe (USA)
● Arpit Bung; Guidewire (New Zealand)
● Sandeep Acharya; Pidilite Industries Limited
● Jaykumar Raithatha; Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) (Canada)
● Phani Priya Raju; Angel investor - HeadStart Network, LetsVenture
● Sapan Singhai; Infosys USAPrevious Investors:
● Vijay Shekhar Sharma; Paytm Founder; Launched Biggest IPO in India
● Dr. Ritesh Malik; Invested in 150+ Startups
● Nikhil Sharma; Invested in both rounds●Ankush Agrawal; VC investor
Q: How did you find customers on the initial day when you had no funds?
In the IT field, everyone inspires to land globalcustomers. What they don’t realize isthat In-person meetings can help you build relationships faster. I was concerned that wedid not have that much money to travel the world, but is there any way the world cantravel to us. I put up my place on Airbnb, thereby making the place and food free forentrepreneurs. I hosted 120+ entrepreneurs in the initial three years. One person fromAzerbaijan stayed for about a year. We learned a lot about global customers, which hadhelped us build strong in-person relationships, a few of which turned into big businesses.
Q: How do you find initial employees when you have no funds?
Many companies judge candidates by their collegedegree, their grades, and theirprevious work experiences. But, we filter candidates based on the passion they have forthe role, their willingness to learn, and their drive to perform the best. Our engineeringlead was an organic farmer who spent six years learning engineering and now leads theengineering team. Our front-end developer was selling panipuri. Passionate peoplecontribute from the heart and give in their best.
