CBREX - A Technology Platform That Helps Recruiting Firms to Connect, Collaborate & Earn
Launched in September 2015 by three co-founders - Gautam Sinha, Sanjeev Punwani and Karunjay Anand, CBREX is a technology platform (messaging based) that enables recruiting firms from across the world to connect, collaborate and earn. The platform works as specified below
Recruiting firms from across the world post jobs that they can’t fill either because sourcing for that job requires networks in a different country (i.e. I am a firm based in the UK but the job that I have is based in Turkey ) or they don’t have the bandwidth to close that job (globally firms fill less than 20% of the jobs that they have access to leading to a loss in revenue and opportunity cost) or it falls into a domain that i don’t have expertise in ( I am a firm specializing in IT placements but the job is of a financial controller).
These jobs are then mapped to relevant suppliers based on the rating (analytics that we have) of the supplier and their area of expertise
Once the supplier accepts the job, then the person who has posted the demand and the supplier are connected through a messaging application by which they talk to each other. However, they don’t know each other i.e. the platform is anonymous in nature
The suppliers send CVs through the platform and obtains feedback on each CV.
Once the closure happens the supplier is paid 50% of the commission, the person who has posted the job gets 30% and the platform gets 20%.
The founder has a strong domain background in Recruiting (has sold a recruiting firm earlier in 2008) and was trying to solve a live problem of how to get recruiting firms to scale beyond their country of residence without the need for opening an office.
Talking about the special key services of their startup, Gautam Sinha, Co-Founder and CEO, CBREX said, “CBREX will be the largest marketplace of supply ready recruiting firms in the world. As we connect firms to firms, we will enable each of them to earn more from their current contacts of clients and candidates by enabling a seamless collaboration through our patented messaging and analytics platform. As sign up on the platform is free, we are seeing exponential growth on the membership front that has enabled us to be present in 80 countries within 6 months of our launch. Our messaging and CV sending platform ensures that the time spent to close positions comes down as firms can access supply pools ANYWHERE in the world on the click of a button.”
The startup has contract ready firms as its members so firms get CVs for jobs posted and approved within 48-72 hours from anywhere in the world. Its analytics engine gathers live data on each transaction and develops a rating for each firm that ensures that the platform matches the best possible supplier in any part of the world to each job requirement.
CBREX has raised a seed amount of $200,000. It makes money when the transaction closes i.e. when a candidate joins the place of work. “our earnings are @20% of the commission amount and the average commission on our platform is between $5,000-15,000,” said Gautam.
When asked about the challenges faced by CBREX, Gautam told that in any B2B marketplace model, creating the first 500 users is the toughest part. Once having got the first 500, then spending time to engage with them so that 30% of them start transacting i.e. either posting requirements OR supplying for that requirement is the next stage. CBREX has now crossed both the stages and are set for the next phase of its growth.
The market is at $70 Billion and there are 1 million recruiting firms in the world. The level of fragmentation or inefficiency is very high as the top 5 firms in the recruiting space have only 1% market share. this means that the balance 99% is divided over 1 million firms making the size of each firm, on an average, around $70,000 a year. This is what CBREX is trying to aggregate.
The startup have 582 members across 80 countries. Of these 96 are transacting i.e. posting jobs or sending CVs. The company will be at 3000 members by Dec across 120 countries with 750 transacting members and will be closing 30-40 transactions a month with revenues of $100,000-150,000 a month.
“CBREX has invented a platform from India. We want to prove that you can build a world class "original" product firm out of India,” Gautam Mentioned.
