Candid Hospitality: New Hull-based hospitality recruitment platform aims to reshape industry
The entrepreneurs behind two major hospitality tech businesses have joined forces to launch a new Hull-based venture aiming to reshape hospitality recruitment.
Sam Brown and Nick Holroyd-Doveton have raised £785,000 to further develop their matchmaking platform, Candid Hospitality.
Launched in February this year, the platform has already attracted over 3,000 candidates and 100 brands including Big Table Group, Loungers, Honest Burgers, Turtle Bay, Punch Pubs, Flight Club and The Alchemist, and resulted in over 700 matches. The company now plans to double the size of its team from seven to 14 in the next two years, following the investment.
The funding came from NPIF II – Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Ventures and part of the Northern Powerhouse Fund II (NPIF II), Haatch and an angel investor. The move marks the first NPIF II equity investment in Hull.
Mr Holroyd-Doveton said: “Having spent years in hospitality, both Sam and I know the challenges of recruitment. Candidates are often afraid to look for a better job in case their current boss finds out, while employers spend huge sums on new hires only to find they are the wrong fit. We felt the process must be ripe for change.
“Using our industry contacts, we spoke to 60 operators and over 100 candidates and developed Candid based on their feedback.”
The Candid platform allows candidates to build an anonymous profile and view opportunities and employers. In place of CVs, candidates are matched on skills and values to ensure they meet job requirements and “fit into the company’s culture”.
Mr Holroyd-Doveton co-founded Omnifi, which was sold to Access Group in 2021, while Mr Brown was previously a director of Airship Services.
Airship Services was also backed by Mercia and the first Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund and was sold to Zonal in 2022.
The hospitality sector is the UK’s third largest employer, accounting for around 3.5 jobs directly and with a further three million in the supply chain, according to a report by the trade body UK Hospitality.