urfuture, the hiring platform helping young people find their first role, has raised £1.7m in a seed round led by River Capital. Solid Bond, which backed urfuture in its first pre-seed round in November 2023, also took part in this round alongside SyndicateRoom's Access fund, Manchester Angels, Fhunded, Host Capital and a group of sector specialist angels.
Founded by Tom Keighley, Jayel Williams and Holly Hobbs, urfuture is rethinking how employers find and hire entry-level talent. Rather than relying on CVs, its app uses a behavioural science algorithm, developed with psychologists, to match young people's personality, interests and skills to more than 18 career paths.
Early traction has been strong. Since launching, the app has passed 50,000 downloads and generated more than 160 million views across social media. Employers using the platform include Tesco, British Airways, West Midlands Police and the Metropolitan Police.
The new funding will grow urfuture's sales, marketing and engineering teams, and launch a self-serve product so small and mid-sized businesses can use the platform too.
"It's been great to watch urfuture grow since we first backed the team at pre-seed in 2023. This funding should unlock fast scale, and we're looking forward to supporting them through it."
