Finnish-Kenyan online career and recruitment platform, Fuzu, has raised 1.75 million EUR for expansion in Africa and Asia.
With this injection of new funds from Finnfund, Barona and Polkuni, Fuzu intends to commence expansion in the African and Asian markets.
The total funding raised for the expansion in Africa and Asia is 1.75 million EUR. Finnfund’s contribution in the first phase will be 500,000 EUR with the possibility of increasing it to 1.5 million EUR. Barona will invest 150,000 EUR and Polkuni 100,000 EUR during this round.
Fuzu’s vision is to provide innovative solutions to challenges faced by millions of job seekers and employers across the emerging markets. For employers, the platform offers advanced headhunting search and recruitment solutions with competence evaluation and algorithm based ranking to identify the best fitting candidates for their roles while on the other hand, it provides career counselling, learning solutions, information about open positions and industry updates to job seekers, hence providing support and guidance at different stages of user’s career.
The company, currently operating in Kenya, has a community of more than 180,000 users in Kenya and over a hundred companies are using the platform to acquire talent.
The potential growth is significant as there will be more than 120 million people entering the job market between 2010 and 2020 alone, making Africa the largest job market globally by 2040.
“Youth unemployment is one of the most significant challenges of our time and unless solved, will lead to social instability with serious global repercussions. A bigger percentage of our users have never received any form of career guidance or acquired any professional education. Our vision is to provide hope to millions of users with a digital service that continuously encourages them to fulfil their potential and prepares them for alternative career paths; from formal employment to entrepreneurship and self-employment,” says CEO of Fuzu Limited, Jussi Hinkkanen.
