Handshake raised US$80 million in Series D funding round

Handshake, a San Francisco based platform for college recruitment has raised US$80million Series D funding on 20^th October 2020. The funding was led by GGV Capital.

The investors of Series D round

The existing investors of Handshake participating in this round included the seed funding round lead True Ventures; the Series A round lead Spark Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners that invested in its seed round in 2015, and other investors Emerson Collective and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. This Series D round was led after two years from the Series C round, led by EQT Ventures, who was a participant of this round as well. Handshake has been utilizing its previous funding (closed in 2019) in expanding its community colleges network and virtual events services. 

The present valuation of Handshake is not being disclosed, but it is estimated that it has doubled since its last round which was US$275 million. It covers around 17 million job seekers, 500,000 employers, 1,000 institutions and 120 institutions serving minorities. These minority serving institutions include Hispanic Serving Institutions and Historically Black Universities and Colleges in the US. 

The institutions partnering with Handshake use the platform to connect its students with accounts that include school year, course work and verified GPA. The students can determine the information they want to share with the employers and the employers who can reach out to them based on their career interest preferences. The students can communicate with their peers, ask and answer the doubts, and read reviews on the site. 

The pricing model of Handshake 

The pricing for schools is based on the student enrollment size and is an all-in-one charge. An average school can witness 60% increased student engagement after switching to their platform. The schools can also observe the increase in employers recruiting at their campus by two or three fold. For employers the platform has both a free and premium model. They can post jobs and register for events, free of cost. And for the employers who sign for the premium product, the pricing is based on entry level hiring, the number of Handshake seats they have and the complexity and preciseness of hiring. Handshake has been aimed to deliver its vision of democratizing job opportunities by connecting job seeking students with employers at the higher education institutions. It has offices in San Francisco, London and Denver. It has also signed up some of the leading schools in the UK recently including University of York, University of Liverpool and Cambridge University.

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