Sova Assessment secures $9m in additional growth funding round

The additional funding from Octopus Ventures will be used to additional growth funding to support continued international and market expansion 

London, UK – 2nd of February 2022:  Sova Assessment Limited, the HR Tech enterprise talent assessment software platform, today announced it has raised $9m in a growth funding round from existing investor, Octopus Ventures. 

Based in London, with international offices in Dubai and Melbourne and a global network of strategic partners, Sova is an end-to-end talent assessment SaaS platform. Its enterprise platform technology answers the challenge organisations are facing around improving accuracy, efficiency and fairness of decision-making at scale. 

As organisations and workplaces evolve through the pandemic, they need to adopt a more strategic, joined-up talent strategy to build closer links between talent acquisition and internal talent, to hire the right people but also upskill and develop the existing workforce. All too often, the systems and processes which underpin talent management are disjointed and fragmented, leading to poor quality insight and decision-making. Sova is turning the assessment industry on its head, moving from narrow off-the-shelf point solutions to a business-critical enterprise HR tech solution providing talent intelligence at scale.

The fully configurable platform is powered by Sova’s industry-leading assessment tools, workflow management and powerful analytics, all in one fully integrated system. Organisations can make fast, fair and data-driven decisions at every stage of the employee journey from recruitment, internal talent identification programmes, leadership development and beyond. 

The additional funding from Octopus Ventures signals its continued confidence in Sova, having witnessed the rapid growth of the business over the last 12 months and since the business secured $4 million of growth funding from Octopus Ventures in November 2020. The funding will be used to accelerate growth via geographical expansion as well as investing in further developing and marketing Sova’s leading assessment platform, delivering real-time talent intelligence throughout the employee lifecycle.

Alan Bourne, CEO of Sova Assessment Limited, said: 

“I am delighted to continue our journey with Octopus Ventures which from the outset, shared our vision to help customers digitise and make fairer, more effective decisions about talent. At a time when organisations are facing significant talent challenges, whether that’s COVID, skills shortages, the impact of technology on jobs or upskilling the workforce, it’s clear that legacy approaches are no longer fit for purpose. Our enterprise assessment platform helps customers make better decisions about talent without compromising fairness, efficiency or candidate experience.”

Paul Davidson, Principal at Octopus Ventures, said:

“With their deep expertise and experience, we have been impressed by how well Alan and his team have helped customers streamline and enhance their talent assessment processes. Sova is leading and transforming the assessment industry, meeting increased global demand for a more integrated, strategic approach to assessing talent that is even more relevant now than it was when we first invested. We first provided growth funding to Sova in November 2020 and due to the rapid growth of the business, we are excited about further supporting Sova.”

Sova has over 120 enterprise-level customers and has assessed over 2.5 million candidates across a number of different sectors in over 20 countries. Customers include Vodafone, John Lewis Partnership, TUI Travel, NatWest, National Australia Bank, Northern Trust, Generali, Police Now, Pfizer and Deloitte.

-Ends-

Sova Assessment

Claire Rahmatallah 

[email protected] 

Octopus Ventures

Jessica Vallance

[email protected]

02039353911

About Sova Assessment 

Sova Assessment launched in 2015 as one of the first fully configurable, mobile friendly digital assessment platform centred around client needs. It has since grown to a point where it is now used by over 120 organisations that rely on Sova’s SaaS-based platform which provides an end-to-end talent assessment solution, combining psychometric science with a compelling technology platform. Sova serves customers in over 20 countries, with offices in London, Dubai and Melbourne and a network of global strategic partners.   

About Octopus Ventures

For the people and ideas that will change the world, because we believe you can build a better tomorrow by investing in it. We can back you at every stage of your journey, from ideas on a page through to IPO. Each year we deploy more than £200 million across five areas where we see maximum potential for impact: health, fintech, deep tech, consumer and B2B software. With many years of experience investing in each of these areas, our team has the expertise and network to help portfolio companies scale at speed. For us, investment is about more than money. Being truly invested is about giving time, energy and focus; working with founders to give them the best chance of success, in the good times and the bad. It means a shared commitment to solving the big problems that matter. We’ve backed the likes of BoughtByMany, Cazoo, Depop, Elvie and WaveOptics, and many more. We are based in London and New York with a network of partners across the U.S and Asia.