Arctic Shores, a Manchester-based psychometric assessment provider, has secured £5.75M in a Series B investment round led by Praetura Ventures (UK-based VC who also backed BlueSkeye AI, BankiFi, Futr, XR Games and Patchwork Health) and Calculus Capital with participation from existing shareholder Beringea.
The UK startup will use the funds to accelerate the development of its soft-skills assessment and international expansion, specifically in Europe, following growth in Germany, including major contracts with Airbus Siemens and Schneider Electric.
Robert Newry, co-founder and CEO of Arctic Shores, says, “This next phase of investment will help Arctic Shores realise its mission to help companies see more in people and transform recruitment so that potential will count as hard skills or experience.”
As a part of the funding round, Helen Verwoert, operational partner at Praetura Ventures and ex-chief people officer at Dr. Martens, and Alexander Crawford, Co-Head of Investments, at Calculus Capital, will join the board.
Revealing full potential
Founded in 2014 by Robert Newry and Safe Hammad, Arctic Shores provides a unique psychometric assessment that uses behavioural tasks and captures responses to determine personality traits that reveal true potential.
Post collecting data points, the application ranks which candidates are most suited to a role in a company. As a result, the UK company helps employers build a diverse, successful workforce by enabling organisations to widen their talent pools, unearthing high-quality candidates often overlooked by CV screening and traditional tests.
Arctic Shores has helped organisations, including Vitality, PwC, Thales, TalkTalk, and Arcadis.
“Companies are being squeezed by a lack of specific skills, which is driving up salaries and recruitment costs. On top of that, there is a cohort of experienced workers soon to retire and an increasingly digitised economy creating many new roles for which no prior experience exists. If companies recruit the same way they have always, they will fail. Arctic Shores gives businesses a unique and proven way to escape this experience trap by assessing for potential so that companies can train up the skills. Companies like PwC, Siemens, and Airbus are leading the way into the future by recognising that the CV is no longer fit for purpose and adopting a soft skills-centric hiring approach,” says Newry.
Helen Verwoert, the operational partner at Praetura Ventures, says, “The recruitment landscape is changing rapidly. The challenges employers face today are fundamentally different to those we’ve seen in previous years. And new challenges need new tools. As we scaled the team at Dr. Martens, we constantly looked for new and innovative ways to help us develop our edge in the ‘race for talent’. Arctic Shores’ platform gives its clients that edge by broadening the talent pool, hiring based on real skills, and removing bias from outdated practices. I look forward to supporting them with Praetura’s More Than Money promise as they grow.”
Alexander Crawford, co-head of investments Calculus Capital, adds, “Arctic Shores has developed a fantastic platform which empowers employers to see the candidate’s potential, reduces bias, and makes hiring decisions backed by data. On top of that, it has an impressive list of clients in over 40 countries. Arctic Shores is run by a strong and experienced management team, and we look forward to working with them to grow and scale the company over the next few years.”
