Accelerator

Antler Investor Memo Series: Yesterday is making hiring smarter, streamlined, and more equitable

- September 13, 2024 3 MIN READ
Yesterday co-founders Katharine Suy and Millie Marconi

Early stage investment company Antler Australia recently backed a new cohort of startups as part of its ongoing program to build great local tech companies.

Startup Daily is sharing the details of each venture in the “Antler Investor Memos” series, which is designed to give you a quick, sharp understanding of the startups and people involved, with many seeking follow up capital following Antler’s initial pre-seed investment.

Company: Yesterday

Founded: August 2023
Stage: Pre-seed
Founders: Millie Marconi (CEO) and Katharine Suy (CPO)
Current investors: Antler
Currently raising: No

The Business

In today’s competitive job market, organisations are grappling with the challenge of understanding the talent landscape to attract, screen, and hire top-tier candidates efficiently. Traditional recruitment methods rely heavily on guesswork and manual processes that are out of sync with real-time market conditions, often leading to missed opportunities and high costs.

The business was co-founded within an Antler residency by CEO Millie Marconi, a former headhunter for some of Australia’s fastest-growing firms, and CPO Katharine Suy, who has built and scaled her own global marketing teams for high-growth tech scaleups, with over 100 successful hires and conducted thousands of customer interviews. Their combined expertise in recruitment, digital marketing, and strategic growth provides the ideal founder-market fit for Yesterday.

Using advanced AI to tailor screening tools to the specific needs of each company, Yesterday ensures that only the most suitable candidates are advanced, significantly accelerating the hiring process. This not only boosts speed and efficiency but also enhances fairness and transparency, aligning recruitment practices with workplace diversity and inclusion targets.

According to the 2024 HR Industry Benchmark Report conducted across Australia and New Zealand by ELMO Software, the expense of recruiting a single employee has surged from an average of $10,500 in 2021 to $20,000 per candidate. With 80% of HR professionals projecting growth in their workforce and one in seven new hires exiting during probation, recruitment has become not only costly but also inefficient.

Yesterday addresses this challenge by providing market intelligence in real-time, offering data-driven insights that empower companies to optimise their hiring process. Yesterday’s AI-powered platform analyses talent markets, providing insights into the supply and demand of roles, how a company’s job offering compares to competitors, and personalised strategies to reduce time-to-hire by up to 50%. This approach doesn’t just accelerate the hiring process; it also enhances fairness, transparency, and alignment with workplace diversity and inclusion targets.

Antler investment thesis

“Yesterday’s platform is transforming recruitment through market intelligence, setting a new standard in the HR tech space,” says Mike Abbott, Partner at Antler Australia.

“What sets Yesterday apart is its focus on real-time market insights, something most HR tools don’t offer. By giving recruiters the ability to make informed decisions based on real data, they are not just improving efficiency but future-proofing their teams.”

“The founder-market fit is impeccable. With Millie’s deep experience in recruitment and Katherine’s insights from working in high-growth startups, Yesterday is poised to revolutionise the recruitment industry.”

Traction/milestones

Since its inception, Yesterday has swiftly validated its market fit and refined its AI-driven platform. The company is projected to surpass 6-figure revenue by the end of Q4, reinforcing its growth trajectory and already demonstrating 50% faster time-to-hire through real-world client tests. Early customers are actively shaping the product to ensure it meets their needs, and feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Many users have noted the platform’s ability to reduce hiring guesswork and enhance decision-making through market data.

The onboarding of a company in the portfolio of Steven Bartlett (the host of The Diary of a CEO) is the latest milestone, further validating Yesterday’s market fit and strengthening the company’s path to scale.

Latest funding

Pre-Seed from Antler

Use of Funds

Antler’s investment is being used to expand Yesterday’s technological infrastructure, enhance the platform’s real-time market intelligence capabilities, and further develop the technical team. These funds are also supporting the refinement of AI models to provide companies with real-time, actionable insights into the talent market.

Millie Marconi, CEO of Yesterday, says, “This investment is crucial for us to accelerate our market intelligence capabilities and scale our reach. With Antler’s support, we’re enhancing our platform to meet the evolving demands of modern recruiters.”

The founders say

“The support from Antler has been invaluable. It’s not just the funding but also the access to a network of industry experts and strategic guidance that has sharpened our approach,” says Katharine Suy, CPO of Yesterday.

“Yesterday goes beyond traditional recruitment tools. We provide critical market intelligence—real-time data on talent supply, demand, and market positioning—which allows companies to make informed decisions quickly. We’re not just streamlining hiring; we’re solving the root issues of inefficiency and bias.”

“In a world where data-driven decision-making is the key to success, we’re pioneering smarter, more equitable hiring processes.”

What’s next?

Antler, a global early-stage VC, is revealing its latest investments in ambitious Australian founders and startups. With over 100 investments in early-stage companies, Yesterday is one of its most recent portfolio companies.

 

  • StartupDaily is the official media partner of Antler in Australia.