As featured in The Herald.
GLOBAL rec-tech start-up WIllo has hired one of Scotland’s foremost tech funding experts to lead its finance division and help drive further national and international expansion.
Kevin Swan joins the growing Glasgow-founded video interview platform from EY, where as associate director corporate finance he was responsible for leading the professional services giant’s technology deals in Scotland.
Willo is one of the world’s fastest growing asynchronous video interview platforms, working with more than 5,500 organisations including the NHS, Coinbase, Chick-fil-A, and Sureify.
Willo’s new VP of Finance Swan – winner of Emerging Dealmaker of the Year at Business Insider's Deals and Dealmakers awards in 2022 for his work with technology companies in Scotland – brings a decade of experience working on ‘transformative’ high-growth tech deals the role, including the sale of edtech business Flow to Mapal Software in 2019, and securing investment in ETB Technologies from Swedish funder Roko. The latter was named Scotland's SME Deal of the Year for 2022 at the Business Insider ceremony. Corporate finance technology expert Swan will initially focus on dialling up Willo’s use of data-led business insights and intelligence, with the aim of helping the start-up – which recently announced $2.5million investment to drive expansion into the US – scale around the world.
He said: “The scale of the market opportunity for Willo is enormous. The pandemic precipitated a huge increase in remote interviewing, but it has already developed significantly since then and become a continually accelerating trend, particularly for organisations with a high-volume of job intakes. Willo’s ease and simplicity to use, extensive integrations with key applicant-tracking systems, value-added features like candidate ID verification checks, and dedicated customer service separate it from the competition and I firmly believe we have the potential to be the world’s go-to video interview platform. I have worked in professional services for almost a decade – mostly working with high growth businesses and particularly in technology – and I am excited to work in a high-growth tech business from the inside instead of advising from the outside and then moving onto the next role when a deal is done.”
Founders Euan Cameron and Andrew Wood believe Swan’s expertise in business insights and intelligence will help take the burgeoning tech firm to new heights.
Cameron, WIllo’s CEO, said: “Kevin is somebody we’ve had our eye on for some time, and brings a wealth of experience working with high-growth startups that will help Willo scale in all departments. We are firm believers in decision making informed by data-led insights and intelligence, and Kevin’s expertise in this area significantly Increases the value we offer customers, employees, and shareholders through financial maturity. We have ambitions to be the world’s biggest video interview platform, and Kevin’s data-led approach and insight will be central to our achieving them.”
Willo, which already operates in more than 135 countries around the world, remains on target to grow turnover to £40m by the end of 2025, an ambition that will include reaching more than one million video interview completions per month – a key metric for the burgeoning firm – and in excess of 80,000 paying users.
Willo plans to open a new headquarters in New York City in second half of this year that will provide a base for a seven-strong US sales and support team. The US hires are part of a global recruitment drive that will more than double Willo’s total headcount by the end of 2023. The firm plans to bring on board 25 new team members to drive further growth in the US, UK, and Asian markets.
