YC-backed Weekday raises $2.2M in a seed round led by Venture Highway

Y-Combinator-backed startup Weekday, helping companies hire engineers, has raised $2.2 million in a seed funding round led by Venture Highway, with participation from other notable investors.

The San Francisco-based startup plans to deploy the fresh capital towards enhancing its product offerings, expanding its technical team, and bolstering its market presence. 

Founded in 2021 by Amit Singh, Anubav Malik, and Chetan Dalal, Weekday helps startups hire engineers who are vouched by other software engineers. By leveraging references, the platform ensures that companies can make informed hiring decisions.

At present, The startup is focused on companies hiring remote software engineers, of which the majority of them are based in India and Southeast Asia. By 2025, It expects to onboard over 250,000 active job seekers and around passive seekers, backed by peer references for recruiters from 1000-plus companies.

How it works?

Weekday invites software engineers to connect their social graph and gives them a readymade shortlist to refer talent to various companies. The platform gamifies the experience and makes this unique data of references available for recruiters.

It hosts multiple people’s references, and companies can utilize the “Backchannel” feature to get background references (from former colleagues) on every candidate they interact with; making hiring less about resumes and interviews and more about real-life experiences and capabilities.

"People check and rely on reviews nowadays for everything, be that going to a restaurant or buying anything on e-commerce. But, when it comes to making the important decision of hiring someone, they are happy to rely on a self-reported resume. This creates a detrimental cycle for both employers and the candidate. We want to change that. We want to solve the problem of lack of trust in the hiring process. We believe that a recruiting platform with "references" as the cornerstone is the solution that solves all hiring problems," said Amit Singh, CEO and co-founder of Weekday.

“While most other company functions like design, product, dev tools, and sales have seen breakthrough products in the last 5-6 years, recruitment still hasn't. LinkedIn is a 20-year-old company that continues to be the de-facto platform for recruitment. We are partnering with Weekday as they try to change that,” said Aviral Bhatnagar from Venture Highway.

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