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Venture Capital News: Brightfield Scores $53M Series A

2019-10-01
NEW YORK, NY, Brightfield, the company powering the world's largest workforce-data network, announced today that it raised $53 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by Sapphire Ventures with participation from MissionOG, CapitalOne Growth Ventures and Telescope Partners. A leader in unified workforce optimization, Brightfield's market intelligence software platform, Talent Data Exchange (TDX), is used by IT, Procurement, Finance, and HR leaders to manage workforce spending in an era where an increased percentage of corporate personnel are part of an Extended Workforce, made up of temps, consultants, freelancers, "gig" workers, and contractors.

"The gig economy has fundamentally changed the way companies source and engage talent," said Dave Hartwig, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Sapphire Ventures. "Brightfield's platform is the global standard for executives that need to understand the evolution and economics of how modern work gets done. We're excited to invest in their unique solution as the extended workforce becomes a top priority for CIOs, CPOs, and HR leaders navigating a rapidly-changing labor market responding to the impact of digital transformation."

Although the Extended Workforce represents one of every three workers today and $3.7 trillion in global annual employer spend, the market has lacked a neutral source of intelligence that companies can use to best design jobs and teams within the economic and operating constraints of a business. Customers like CapitalOne and Medtronic have used Brightfield's AI-driven TDX platform to generate recurring savings of 5-10% of spending, reduce the time to fill roles by 25%, and increase hiring manager and candidate satisfaction by optimizing their job taxonomies, workforce mix, pay rates, and supplier networks.

"Only five years ago, we conceived of the idea of TDX, fueled by the conviction to build an unbiased, third-party data exchange to benefit buyers, sellers and intermediaries in the global talent marketplace. Our success was only possible because of the trust and support received from our TDX members, partners, collaborators, and teammates. I couldn't be prouder of the work accomplished to date and how well we are set up for the road ahead," said Jason Ezratty, Founder and Chairman of Brightfield.

TDX is powered by the world's largest labor data consortium of employers, staffing firms, managed service providers, and talent networks. Launched in 2015, TDX has grown rapidly to a source of artificial intelligence trained by over $350B in labor spend from over 300 organizations across over 15 industry verticals and 100 countries. By using proprietary data science and natural language processing, Brightfield ingests ongoing member data feeds on job, cost and performance data from Procurement, Finance and HR systems to record and analyze the context of job descriptions, statements of work, contracts, and financial transactions between employers, suppliers, and workers.

"Our ambition is to close the global skills gap by enabling enterprise decision makers to drive business outcomes through unified management of internal and external labor sources," said Jesse Levin, who was appointed CEO in October 2018. "The fourth industrial revolution underway creates a pressing need for market transparency around the historically dark pool of contract labor. TDX reduces commercial friction in this important and growing market to increase the speed and efficiency of a complex, rapidly changing supply chain for modern talent markets. We assembled the unique combination of technology, data, network, and expertise to build an enduring solution for a challenge that employers must solve."

About Brightfield
Brightfield powers the transformation of work. Members of its Talent Data Exchange (TDX) software platform gain access to uniquely differentiated data, prescriptive business insights and recommendations about how to optimize the design and mix of their jobs, teams, pay rates, and suppliers. Talent buyers drive transformational business outcomes by improving the fillability of jobs while talent sellers improve the winability of requisitions. Located in New York, NY and Washington, DC, for more information visit http://www.brightfield.com.

About Sapphire Ventures
Sapphire Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on helping innovative technology companies become global category leaders. Leveraging nearly two decades of experience and an extensive global enterprise network, Sapphire Ventures invests capital, resources, and expertise to enable its portfolio companies to scale rapidly. Whether entrepreneurs sell to businesses, consumers or both, Sapphire Ventures offers a powerful platform for business development and operational excellence to help them accelerate growth. With $2.5 billion under management via direct growth investments and early-stage fund investments, Sapphire Ventures is positioned to elevate companies to the global stage. For more information visit http://www.sapphireventures.com.

About MissionOG
MissionOG partners with high-growth businesses that have proven models in segments where we have had success as operators and investors, including financial services and payments, data platforms, and software. We apply our experience and capabilities to a group of highly skilled and passionate entrepreneurs whose businesses are on the cusp of exponential growth. The firm is managed by operators and investors who have effectively built early to growth stage businesses and guided them through successful acquisitions. Headquartered in Philadelphia, for more information visit http://www.missionog.com.
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