Moka Closes Tens of Millions in Series A+ Funding to Become the Talent Weapon Behind Successful Companies | FreeS Fund Deal News

On March 26, 2018, Moka, an intelligent recruitment management system, announced the completion of its Series A+ round of tens of millions of RMB, led by GSR Ventures with follow-on investment from GGV Capital. The proceeds will be used for team building, talent acquisition, product R&D, and market expansion.

Moka was founded in September 2015. FreeS Fund invested in its angel round and continued to increase its stake in the Series A round led by GGV Capital. Over the past two-plus years, FreeS has witnessed Moka gain recognition from top-tier investors and win enterprise clients including Xiaomi, Momo, TAL Education Group, Levi's, Trendy International Group, Burger King, Poly Developments and Holdings, and Hangzhou Wanda.

What the Investors Say

Li Feng, Founding Partner of FreeS Fund

Email: feng@freesvc.com

Congratulations to Moka on this new round of funding. FreeS is delighted to continue supporting Moka alongside both new and existing investors.

I met Oulun Zhao a little over two years ago, shortly after he returned to China to start his company. In the time since, Zhao has matured considerably as a person, and his product and management capabilities have improved rapidly — I believe this is the main reason he has been able to secure consecutive investments from top-tier VCs and gain the support of so many clients. Of course, the past two-plus years have also involved many challenges for Moka. Congratulations once again.

For much of China's internet history, recruitment-related entrepreneurship has focused primarily on two directions: recruitment effectiveness and front-end recruitment. As the enterprise services market has grown, and as small and medium-sized enterprises have increasingly demanded better digital workflow processing in recent years, enterprise service products like Moka — which approach the market from the angle of recruitment process management — have gained increasing recognition. Moka's trajectory precisely demonstrates that China's enterprise services market is gradually growing and maturing, and I believe Moka will have tremendous opportunities in this large market.

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▲ From left: Jixun Foo, Managing Partner at GGV Capital; Lim Kian Chong, Managing Director at GSR Ventures; Li Feng, Founding Partner of FreeS Fund; and Oulun Zhao, Founder and CEO of Moka

Recently, Moka (intelligent recruitment management system) announced the completion of its Series A+ round of tens of millions of RMB, led by GSR Ventures with follow-on investment from GGV Capital. It is understood that GSR Ventures and GGV Capital have previously co-invested in well-known companies including DiDi, Qunar, and Xiaohongshu. "This round of funding will be used for team building, talent acquisition, product R&D, and market expansion," said Oulun Zhao, Founder and CEO of Moka.

Moka is a company dedicated to helping clients improve recruitment efficiency through comprehensive recruitment ecosystem solutions. Its product is a next-generation SaaS intelligent recruitment management system. Founded in September 2015, it has received consecutive investments from FreeS Fund and GGV Capital. Its client base now covers multiple industries including internet, education, finance, FMCG, automotive, and real estate, with enterprise clients including Xiaomi, Kingsoft WPS, Momo, TAL Education Group, Tarena, Quidian, PPDAI, Sequoia Capital, 5Y Capital, Levi's, JNBY, Trendy International Group, Burger King, Xpeng Motors, Jingchi Technology, Poly Developments and Holdings, and Hangzhou Wanda.

Oulun Zhao, Founder and CEO of Moka: "The overseas equivalent to Moka is Greenhouse, a Silicon Valley near-unicorn. Compared to the highly developed recruitment management sector abroad, Chinese enterprises generally lack the habit of using such systems. Beyond differences in mindset between Chinese and American companies, this is also due to the relative scarcity and poor usability of domestic vendors. That's why Moka has emphasized product user experience from the very beginning — this is also the aspect most recognized by client HR teams and hiring managers, who generally find it easy to learn and smooth to use."

In terms of functionality, beyond foundational features such as channel aggregation, resume screening, interview calendars, collaborative syncing, mobile office capabilities, interview reminders, interview evaluations, and visualized data reports, Moka has extended into service functions including talent pool management, executive dashboards, internal referral and headhunter management and analytics, employer brand building (micro-sites), and social recruitment.

Additionally, Moka maintains efficient innovation. Resume parsing and fuzzy deduplication capabilities have long plagued vendors and HR teams. Within the past year, Moka has improved its resume parsing accuracy to 90% and its fuzzy deduplication capability to 88%. Internal referrals have always been a valued recruitment channel for enterprises, yet HR previously could only passively wait for colleague referrals. In September 2017, Moka partnered with Maimai to launch an enterprise internal referral feature — Enterprise Network — enabling HR teams to proactively drive internal referrals. Other innovative features include intelligent talent matching.

Going forward, Moka will continue to expand and complement its core business, with particular emphasis on investment and exploration in data-driven capabilities and artificial intelligence, to further help enterprises improve recruitment efficiency.

On the business model front, Moka charges annual fees based on number of user accounts, adhering to the SaaS model and not offering private deployments.

According to Zhao, as of end-2017, Moka was already serving several hundred paying enterprise clients, with a renewal rate exceeding 130% — as enterprises increase their purchases in the second year. 2018 revenue is projected to reach three times 2017 levels, with growth coming from renewals, new sales, and enterprise upsells.

Currently, the Moka team numbers nearly 70 people. Founder and CEO Oulun Zhao is from UC Berkeley and Turo (the pioneer of American P2P car rental). Co-founder and CTO Guoxing Li is from Stanford University and Facebook. The core team also includes seasoned experts with years of experience in core positions at applicant tracking systems (ATS), bringing unique and deep industry insights.

Moka — dedicated to being the talent weapon behind successful enterprises — is now in a phase of rapid development and welcomes talent across all functions, including frontend and backend engineering, NLP/ML engineers, product managers, design, sales, customer success, and marketing. (Click "read more" to learn about open positions.)