Arctic Shores secures $5.5m Series A led by Beringea to accelerate international expansion Psychometric assessment provider harnesses neuroscience, artificial intelligence and game technology to foster greater diversity and quality in global recruitment practices

Manchester, 02 September 2019: Arctic Shores, the Manchester-based psychometric assessment provider, has announced that it has secured a $5.5m Series A investment to accelerate its international expansion. Beringea, the transatlantic venture capital investor, led the transaction with participation from existing shareholders including Candy Ventures.

Arctic Shores was founded in Manchester by Robert Newry and Safe Hammad, two serial entrepreneurs with substantial experience building technology businesses. The business provides a platform for psychometric assessments that leverages a pioneering approach in artificial intelligence
and neuroscience – the science of which was developed and led by Lara Montefiori, Chief Scientist at Arctic Shores and an academic at University College London.

Since foundation, Arctic Shores has helped more than 140 organisations, across 40 different countries to predict better hires from over 500,000 candidates. The business is rapidly expanding internationally making up 48% of its revenue in this financial year – its offices in Manchester, London and Singapore support a fast-growing roster of global clients including PwC, Airbus, Siemens and Deutsche Telekom.

Arctic Shores will use the investment to accelerate the expansion of its international offices and launch a software-as-a-service platform to broaden its product offering to support both enterprise clients and SMEs. The round brings total investment into Arctic Shores to $10m. Arctic Shores’ unique approach to assessing talent in a scientific, data-driven and engaging format has helped its clients to identify the most suitable applicants as well as significantly increase diversity and inclusion. As a result, Siemens UK recently won HR Magazine’s Most Effective Recruitment Strategy Award and the Intellectual Property Office has been shortlisted for the CIPD Award for Best Diversity and Inclusion Initiative.

Dr. Safe Hammad, CTO and Co-Founder of Arctic Shores, commented: “Arctic Shores has a clear mission to enable companies to be more objective and broader in their selection of applicants and foster an assessment process that provides a fairer evaluation of people from different backgrounds and socio-economic groups.”

“Our rapid growth in the UK and internationally has demonstrated the vast demand for a step change in the way millions of people are selected for roles. Beringea will provide vital support and expertise in scaling international software companies to help us realise our vision.”

Marc Shirman, Investment Director and Head of the Manchester office of Beringea, commented: “Safe, Robert and the exceptional team at Arctic Shores have built an international success story from the heart of Manchester, demonstrating the pressing need for a new approach to recruitment processes that fosters greater diversity and better hires for organisations around the world.

“Beringea has backed the vision and innovation of one of the North of England’s leading technology companies, inspired by a pioneering approach to combining neuroscience, data analytics and game technologies. This investment will play a vital role in bringing this pioneering platform to millions of applicants worldwide.”

About Arctic Shores

Arctic Shores was founded in 2014 with a grant from Innovate UK to help companies make better people choices and people better career choices. Headquartered in Manchester, the company employs more than 50 people and has satellite offices in London and Singapore.

Its unique psychometric test uses behavioural tasks and micro-shifts in responses to determine personality traits, breaking free from the traditional question-based approach. Collecting 7,000 data points from an engaging and game technology driven interface, the platform is able to identify which candidates are most suited to a role in a company.

This data-driven and objective approach has been shown to increase diversity by as much as 60 per cent, improve quality of hire by up to 40 per cent and raise positive candidate feedback to over 80 per cent. The company has been featured by in previous articles by the BBC, The Guardian, and The Times.

About Beringea

Beringea is a transatlantic venture capital investor that seeks to create lasting success for rapidly scaling entrepreneurial companies. It currently manages over $600m in funds and more than 60 portfolio companies across the U.K., Europe and North America.

With offices in London, Manchester and Detroit, it provides patient capital and a global footprint to back founders throughout their journey, helping them overcome barriers to scale and build international success stories.
Its track record of three decades of successful investing across sectors including retail, software, media and artificial intelligence has inspired its own entrepreneurial ethos; cultivated an exceptional community of entrepreneurs and investors; and fostered the experience required to create substantial businesses and deliver value for shareholders in its funds.

For information on our UK investment activities, email [email protected] or visit www.beringea.com.