Jitjatjo, hospitality recruiter, secures $11M in new funding

For service industry and hospitality staffers, finding and securing acceptable talent is no easy job.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an annualized hotel and motel employee turnover rate of 73.8 percent, and food service isn’t faring much better — the National Restaurant Association puts it at 72.9 percent. Unsurprisingly, there’s a labor shortage: The American Hotel and Lodging Association estimates that, as of last month, there were roughly 900,000 job openings in hotels alone.

Brydge investor Ron McCulloch and former Avalon Ventures director Tim Chatfield say they’re doing their darndest to close the gap. In 2016, the pair cofounded New York-based Jitjatjo, which offers an end-to-end web staffing platform with a two-sided marketplace through which businesses can book workers with as little as one hour’s notice (or up to several months in advance). Until recently, it has chosen to laser-target New York City, but Jitjatjo expanded to Chicago four months ago. The company claims 250 percent year-over-year revenue growth and a 350 percent uptick in job postings since launch, and to date it has matched workers in a pool of “several thousand’ with “tens of thousands” of shift assignments.

The icing on top? Fresh venture capital.

Jitjatjo recently announced that it has raised $11 million in series A funding led by Morningside Technology Ventures, which brings the company’s total raised to $17.9 million following seed and preseed rounds totaling $6.9 million. The new funds will drive “continued growth” in its New York and Chicago staffing networks, said Chatfield, and bankroll the buildout of a new headquarters in New York and “enhancement” of its product offerings, in part through hiring more engineers.

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