International hiring automation platform Borderless secures £2.5m

UK-based start-up Borderless today announced £2.5m in seed funding in a round led by Backed VC with participation from Tiny VC and prominent angel investors including Charlie Songhurst and Chris Mairs.

Borderless’s software allows care providers to automate hiring and onboarding of international workers, including recruitment, immigration, relocation and compliance, in one platform, removing the need for intermediary organisations that have long contributed to the industry’s human trafficking and modern slavery issues.

Tackling one of the UK’s greatest national challenges – finding an additional 900,000 workers by 2030 while the average care worker churn is at a staggering 50% year-over-year – Borderless improves and consolidates historically fragmented and expensive workforce management processes. These have contributed to extreme worker shortages for employers and aggressive and illegal employment contracts for candidates.

Founders Matthew Bond and Jonathan Raphael are both former founders and operators with a history of building businesses that solve important problems.

“We met at Entrepreneur First, where we spent hundreds of hours with care providers who were turning down hundreds of thousands of pounds every year in contracts because they couldn’t find the staff they needed to service them. We realised this was partly because of the time and money they had to spend learning how to stay compliant, often working with expensive third-party lawyers and recruiters. We saw how solving those high costs could positively impact the care industry – and that’s why we started Borderless.” said Matthew Bond, Co-Founder at Borderless.

Borderless tackles both sides of the care workforce equation: it gives care workers clear oversight over the recruitment process, and it provides employers with an end-to-end software platform that streamlines all aspects of international hiring and sponsorship to make workforce management low-cost and low-risk.

“We’re extremely pleased to be partnering with the Borderless team as they grow. The solution they have created is one the entire country will benefit from as they expand on their early market dominance. We immediately saw the benefit their technology brings to both candidates looking for better pathways, and care homes searching for the best talent capable of looking after the nation’s elderly,” commented Alex Brunicki, General Partner at BACKED VC.

Currently focused on delivering their product to care providers with up to 500 employees, Borderless is already eyeing a future where they are working with the majority of the UK healthcare sector, and also helping alleviate staff shortages within the NHS itself.