A year after a Boston startup began testing the military equivalent of LinkedIn, the firm has raised $5 million in venture capital to officially launch its fast-growing website in time for Veterans Day.
The investment, which brings RallyPoint's total funding to $6.6 million, was led by Silicon Valley-based DBL Investors to help redefine the way corporate hiring managers connect with and recruit military talent, said Yinon Weiss. Weiss served 10 years of military duty before founding RallyPoint with fellow Iraq War veteran and Harvard Business School alumnus Aaron Kletzing.
"We've gone from a standing start last year to very quickly growing the site" to include 125,000 members — both active duty and veterans — and pages for more than 400,000 companies doing business in the United States, he said.
Nearly one in 10 members of the active-duty Army alone — the military's largest branch — already use RallyPoint for free from bases around the world, he said. Starting Veterans Day, members' spouses, who often share similar employment challenges, can use the website, too.
The same day, 400,000 companies on RallyPoint will be able to post jobs for $99-$5,000. And early next year companies will be able to upgrade their offerings.
John Silva, a 32-year-old former Marine who is now a partner at Cambridge Bookstore, recently discovered RallyPoint through a friend and agreed to help test it to connect with other veterans and recruit employees. In the few weeks since he signed on, he's already conducted two interviews by phone and one in person. And although the latter decided to take a job in western Massachusetts to be closer to home, Silva is confident he'll find the right person on RallyPoint soon.
"As an e-commerce business, we need people who have a high attention to detail, and because we're a small business, a strong sense of teamwork," Silva said. "And veterans have both."
As a Massachusetts employer, he has even more reason now to hire people with military backgrounds. Last month the state more than doubled cash grants for employers who hire Massachusetts veterans. Firms can now apply for training grants of $5,000 for each vet they hire, up to a total of $75,000 per calendar year. Raising the amounts, Weiss said, provides a greater incentive for employers to hire veterans, who have an average unemployment rate of 9.9 percent, compared to 7.2 percent for civilians.
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