Job Leads in Your Social Feed: Announcing Our Investment in Reelist
The Artemis Fund believes technology can create prosperity for all. With offices in New York, Texas, and Nevada, Artemis leads seed rounds for companies creating resilient families, individuals, and businesses across the US.
Imagine you’re a hiring manager at a midsized construction company, tasked with filling a crucial electrician role before a major project deadline. You post the job on Indeed and LinkedIn, only to be flooded with irrelevant resumes while hearing crickets from the skilled workers you actually need. This is the stark reality of the hiring crisis in skilled trades and frontline industries, where employers face rising wages and severe labor shortages while struggling to attract qualified candidates.
The US market size for job search engines and online recruiting in 2024 is estimated to be around $10B, with projections to reach $19.27B by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 8.5%. Yet 75% of employers were unable to fill vacancies in 2024.
There’s a pressing need for targeted and effective hiring solutions that serve the modern employer and skilled and frontline workers.
The Artemis Fund is pleased to lead Reelist’s oversubscribed $3M pre-seed round alongside Core Innovation Capital, Redbud VC, and Equipment Share.
Reelist, based in Norfolk, VA, is a recruiting platform that enables companies to hire skilled trades and frontline workers directly from social platforms, enabling employers to proactively recruit and hire the right candidates more efficiently than ever before.
Sean Worden, Co-founder & CEO/CTO, previously bootstrapped a company from zero to $500M in revenue, scaling to 450 employees before its acquisition, and brings deep expertise in software and enterprise contracting. Katy Schuck, Co-founder & COO, led marketing and operations for venture-backed ad tech startups through Series C, driving user acquisition through data-driven campaigns and go-to-market strategies.
The Opportunity
The job search and online recruiting market presents a significant opportunity:
- 112 million front line workers in the US
- 33.2M businesses in the US
- 99% of these businesses are SMBs with 500 employees or less
The Solution
Reelist enables employers to reach active and passive job seekers through social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok. With Reelist, HR teams don’t need to be social media experts and can manage and automate the entire hiring process from posting, to applying, candidate communication, and hiring on one platform. Their proprietary data model is especially effective for companies hiring in hard-to-hire regions.
The Impact
Blue collar jobs and skilled trades are the backbone of the U.S. economy, particularly in rural areas. Many, if not most, workers in this space have no professional online presence. Reelist bridges this gap by connecting these individuals with local job opportunities they might otherwise miss. For SMB employers in industries with high turnover and persistent labor needs, Reelist provides a cost-effective, targeted hiring solution that simplifies recruitment and strengthens their workforce, driving economic stability in communities nationwide.
Learn more about the companies in our portfolio on our website. If you’re a founder innovating in commerce enablement, fintech, or the care economy, pitch us here!
