Indy-based Qualifi becomes first Be Nimble grad to raise VC

Qualifi, an Indianapolis-based tech firm specializing in recruiting, has raised $600,000 in a pre-seed round of capital.

Investors in the round include Sixty8 Capital and Elevate Ventures, both of Indianapolis, as well as Bloomington-based Flywheel Fund and Cincinnati-based Queen City Angels.

Qualifi, offers an on-demand screening platform that allows recruiting teams to conduct phone interviews for hundreds of candidates in minutes, will use the capital to grow its business—from sales and marketing to further optimizing the platform to addressing customer needs, company officials said.

The company currently has six full-time employees and expects to grow to 25 in 2022.

Founded in 2019, Qualifi grew out of programs by Be Nimble, a social enterprise supporting the growth of Black tech ecosystems. Be Nimble hosts a pitch event and an accelerator program and Qualifi participated in both.

“Since Darrian [Mikell] pitched us his idea for Qualifi at Pitch Pardi, I’ve believed in his mission to make recruiting quicker and simpler,” said Kelli Jones, managing partner at Sixty8 Capital and founder and CEO at Be Nimble. “The growth we’ve seen from Qualifi, its team leadership and impact on its customers reinforced our decision to choose Qualifi as the recipient of [a Sixty8 Capital] first investment.”

Qualifi is the first graduate of a Be Nimble accelerator to raise a venture capital round. It also recently completed its participation in the TechStars Anywhere program.

The Qualifi platform enables recruiters to create one-way interview experiences using audio and voice that candidates respond to over a standard phone call, eliminating back-and-forth scheduling, reducing communication times with candidates and capturing better data to help recruiters scale screening efforts. Recruiters using Qualifi shave one week off their time-to-hire average, company officials said.

Darrian Mikell, CEO and co-founder of Qualifi, said in a statement that the founders of the company have been “recruiters ourselves and we spend so much time listening to our customers to understand the challenges they face, that we know exactly what they need from us.”