Unlocking Hidden Talents: The Future of Skills Mapping with AI

0:00Greetings, everyone. I'm excited to welcome Giacomo Marchiori, CEO and founder of Talentware. Giacomo, welcome to the show. Thank you, Ben. Hello, everybody. Hello. Yeah, great to have you here. As usual, we'll start this out and tell us a little bit about your background. Yeah, I do have an engineering background. So I've been studying engineering management both in Europe and overseas. Then I'm quite atypical because at the beginning I started working in the automotive industry for a while. mainly in manufacturing industries. After that, I did an MBA. And after my MBA path, I started working in consulting for Bain & Company.

0:39That's where I got more in touch with the HR world. And that brought me and gave me the chance to start and to launch Talentware within the Bain Founder Studio based in the US. And then to spin it off and become an independent company officially based in Italy. And here we are in the HR tech world. Oh, amazing. Yeah, quite the diverse background from automotive to software. That's perfect. Tell us about Talentware. Tell us what products and services does Talentware offer? Yeah, at Stalenter, we define ourselves as a skill intelligence platform, which means basically that we act as a layer on top of the typical HRS software that are already in place in most companies, especially in mid-large companies where we operate into.

1:25And we act as an enabler to allow companies to quickly manage and assess skills for each and every employee at scale. This happens leveraging AI, as everybody would say nowadays, probably, but in our case, I have to admit that we are really an AI-native company born in 2023 with this aim and with the purpose of, again, providing this type of content in terms of skills to the companies and to being able to objectively assess the skills of the employees, both from the blue colors up to the white colors at scale. Okay. So layer on top of HRIS data and of course the AI overlay, AI native. So once we've mapped the skills within our employee base, then what's next with that data?

2:17Yeah, good point, Ben. That's always what we like to say as a claim, but ideally that's only the starting point because at the end of the day, skills for the sake of it, for the sake of skills are pointless somehow. Instead, the real advantage is the accuracy, the timing in which you are able to do that, and the way how you can maintain that up-to-date over time through benchmark data, through development paths that the employee go through over time, through performance reviews, etc. etc. And the way you leverage those data, it's mainly through the typical talent management processes within a company.

2:56So moving from the recruiting process that can become faster, more accurate, and more meritocratic, up to the development path that can become way more personalized and to the point instead of typical waterfall investment that we have been seeing in in many companies in terms of learning. And then finally, to this career planning and the succession planning, which again can become really data-driven instead of just a typical PowerPoint slide in a talent review where the key stakeholders are just saying who are their preferred successors and that's it without any real data point. So that's where the key data that talent provides comes into place.

3:41Yeah, that's amazing. We've come a long way from just simple surveys that your boss filled out and then you reviewed it and that was it. So pretty amazing now. And tell us about your ideal customer profile. You mentioned blue collar, white collar. So it sounds like this can work for people working out in the field or for people in the office doing Excel work, for example. Yeah, exactly. Because first of all, the way we map skills, it's by leveraging both internal data of the company, so very specific data, but also external data. So we leverage external benchmarks and our own ontology in order to be more accurate as possible.

4:20At the same time, what's peculiar about Talendr is the way we assess skills, and that's why I mentioned both blue-collar and white colors, because the way we create assessment through our technology, it's very much specific to the industry and to the key characteristics of that company. So imagine an assessment which is very contextualized about the work that you do every day in your role. And that can be, again, amplified through additional data such as information about the product or the process or the machine. If you are on a blue collar working on that specific machine or in that process, that can be ingested and then become part of the question and the simulation that we provide to the person.

5:08So at this time, basically, we are able to submit this type of question and simulation to every employee and to be very specific on all these roles based on the industry and on the key characteristics and therefore can be applied both on blue and white, both on junior and on more senior with a large variety of questions and if you want of somehow differences in terms of skills that you assess because you move from the very technical ones if you are thinking about an engineer working in the aerospace industries to more soft and behavioral ones if you think more to a top executive in a financial services company.

5:50Yeah it makes a ton of sense and is there a minimum employee size where it makes sense where there's enough data where you can really do a lot with AI or could I be a company with 10 people or a thousand people? Yeah, ideally you can apply to even a small company. We use it internally, even though now we are reaching almost 40 people, but we started to use it when we were email-less and we receive almost every day requests, even from some boutique companies, I would say. Of course, for us and where it becomes more valuable on large scale, where you have more struggle in knowing the people and knowing the skills.

6:28Also, because this applies to what we call the idle skills, which for us are those skills that you might have developed in previous experiences. And in many cases, we see companies that have no idea on what are the skills of the people that they have already inside the company. So the larger the company, the more valuable it becomes usually. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. And so before you talk fundraising, what year did you found Talentware? Yeah, we started with the first fundraising basically as soon as we created the company after it was paid out from Bain. And therefore we started with a typical VC fundraising, which the first round was led by the Italian-French VC fund because we wanted to have our European vision since the beginning.

7:15And then we followed the typical path. And after 24 months, we closed the second fundraising, which was quite recent on the news. And again, we are following this path, even though we try to be quite lean and to use it wisely. Because the AI impact, I think, has a big advantage also for us as a company in terms of operation. and therefore this can be used more for, I don't know, go-to-market, for a go-to-market extension instead of too much on the developer side. So there are some changes that we have identified through the journey. And it looks like, yeah, so it's about an 800 ,000 euro pre-seed than a 3.3 euro seed round, so almost 5 million.

8:01And then that first round, it was 2023 or so, is that when you were founded? Yeah, correct. Okay. All right, all right. And then with that seed round, what triggered that? Was there something specific that said you're ready for more capital and can deploy that in a useful way? Yeah, ideally at the beginning for the first round, the main scope was to launch the real platform. Because at the time, we were still selling through an MVP. and we were actually using this no-code solution at the beginning which were not yet AI powered as they are now so a little bit more struggle but still better than a few years before and that helped us to move from the MVP to the full platform so that was part of the first round and to build the first real team inside Talent Europe because before that we were the three of us, the three founders, whereas we became quickly a team of 10, 12 people by the end of the 2024.

9:08Okay. And then it sounds like with this latest round, you mentioned that maybe using more of that capital for your go-to-market motion. Yeah, correct. Yeah. Basically, then we were, we had the chance once we launched the platform to start actually gaining the first clients, the first traction and to validate the product and improve it on the way as usually it happens but now that the product is way more solid we develop different models it's way more scalable and we have also a core team in the different areas product customer support sales now it's more about velocity and scaling quickly and therefore we are leveraging different channels so direct sales which are part of this investment partnership, which is another very important channel.

9:56And finally, also way more on marketing because, again, we are in a B2B world, but it's becoming more and more important to be relevant and to become somehow known in our space. Yeah, and yeah, that helps us. I was going to have to go to MarketMotion, so direct sales partnerships, marketing. And then with that seed round, any lessons popped to mind that you'd like to share with the founder community, whether painful or interesting? First of all, that it's always longer than expected because luckily we took some advantage and we weren't in a rush. But of course, every month that you lose or you could push more, it's something that you are losing on the market somehow.

10:41So it's potential clients that you are leaving on the way and opportunities. The suggestion is to start conversation as early as possible. Also, because it's all, in my opinion, it's always good to start from the relations instead of from the business directly. Because especially in Europe, I think it helps a lot in building the trust. And at the end of the day, especially in the initial phase, it's an investment on the people, on the founders and on the key men of the company. And therefore, knowing each other, because then it's an investment also from our side into the VC fund. so it's reciprocal it's good to know more and more who's becoming your shareholder oh that's that's that's our first advice the second one is that it's becoming more and more difficult to differentiate in the ai world so i think in a in an ai world again where everybody can build something or almost anything in a very short term what makes a difference i think it's if you go to market and the way you communicate and you are able to actually sell your product.

11:46And therefore, I think, again, the go-to-market side, I think it's a real differentiator and I think should be for at least for a B2B SaaS, still a good part of the investment round. I would definitely think about it. And probably if you think it's 100, let's raise for 140 for that because it's becoming more and more a differentiator. Yeah, that's interesting, especially, yeah, everybody knows we've got AI products. So how are you different? I guess no different than before, but also a conversation that comes up a lot in the software world since the beginning is pricing and, you know, pricing going all over the map with AI products, but tell us your pricing mechanisms.

12:29How are you pricing your product? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. And part of constant brainstorming and iteration that we do currently internally also because having different modules and features doesn't mean, in my opinion, that you have to sell them all in the same way. But in our case, we started with the typical SaaS licensing, so per seed and per module, so kind of a matrix. Right now, especially with our AI assessment feature, we are starting selling it by credit, not just because it's the trend of these days, but it's because it's probably easier to understand and to sell and to use also for the customer if you sell it by credit because at the end of the day the assessment creation is a mix in our case of an AI consumption and a human consumption in terms of timing where you support the client and it's also a factor of the complexity of the role and the skills and the context of the company So there are several factors and therefore the way the company use it might differ from one case to another because as you said, it could be for a blue collar, it could be for a small company, for a large company where you need more information to ingest and then it becomes more complex and more costly to develop.

13:52And therefore that gives us on our side the flexibility but also on the customer side the flexibility to spend that based on the effective usage. Yeah, interesting. And on the AI side and model selection, right, model selection, a big debate. What's your philosophy towards that? Are you trying to stay always current with the latest model, frontier models? Or are you trying to find a balance between your cost on inference and then also delivering quality output? Yeah, correct. It's a tough tradeoff, I would say. And it's also difficult to keep the base with the latest model because I think every week now we have something.

14:30coming up. So therefore, we had to choose a strategy in terms of assets and technology where to invest a little bit more. It doesn't mean that we are locked in because we try to be always flexible, but of course, we had to choose somehow and start developing our models on top of that. So keeping the pace with those releases, but without changing technology every two days. At the same time, I think that what's important for the customer it's more the in our case the output and the quality of the skills and of the assessment so even if it takes a little bit longer or if it takes a couple of iterations instead of one as far as this is much faster and much better and much scalable than before then it's worth it yeah yeah interesting always a balance with that and we're so used to instant answers but now So yeah, it may take a minute or two or five minutes to process and that's okay.

15:30What at this stage of your business, you're about, I don't know, three-ish years in, raise some capital. Do you have a favorite number or metric or metrics that you're focused on to guide the business? Yeah, right now it's still the ARR, the leading metrics at this stage. We are not thinking yet about too much about the profitability, even though it's part of the strategy. But again, we are trying to ride the momentum and therefore that's the key metric on the economic side. On the other hand, we are very looking at the active users because for us it's important in terms of feedback that we receive and making sure that it's not the additional tool where many HR SaaS products end.

16:15But it's something that is really useful for the company. There even might be one user, the HR manager, using it for several purposes, but at least we know that it's serving that purpose. Yeah, yeah, no, and ARR, always a popular metric for founders. Jacob, we appreciate the time today. A few stats and figures before we wrap up. Do you have a company headquarters location? Yeah, our headquarters are in Milan, in Italy. Then we do have a couple of offices also in another region, but that's our headquarter. and now we are opening up in Spain a new office together with our go-to-market strategy in the country.

16:55And that's it. Okay. And then before you mentioned your team size, almost 40? Yeah, now we are 30 people, but by the end of the year, we will be 40. Okay. Okay. So growing fast. And then what about sense of scale? Anything you want to share around revenue or AR ranges? We were, I would say, ahead of our business plan. And a typical growth of times three per year, more or less, you know, respected that. Now it's starting to be interesting considering that we are opening up a new country. And so I think the next year it's going to be the real challenge and it's going to be fun. Okay. Yeah. All right.

17:35I had a business plan. Always good. We'll make the finance folks happy. Giacomo, appreciate your time today. We're almost in September here, 2026. So as you think about Q4 coming up, what's top of mind as far as execution? You mentioned go-to-market, opening the Spain office. So is that the big initiative for the last quarter of the year? Yeah, definitely. Then the last quarter, it's also the more dense, the most dense, I would say, in terms of events and hopefully also ARR as it has been in the last couple of years. I know honestly we do have a lot in our pipeline both of customers events activities and these kind of initiatives in there in Spain as well so it's it's gonna be a lot of stuff a lot of hirings as well after the round and considering what what you just shared and so that's different different paths that we need to fill and to pursue by by end of the year.

18:30No, that's great. Always a lot to do. And I think, yeah, there's a big Shift AI conference coming to Barcelona in October. Wish I was going to be there, but can't make it this year. Jack, I appreciate the time sharing your journey today. If listeners would like to learn more about Talentware, where should we send them online? Yeah, you can find us at our website, talentware.ai, or you can find me on LinkedIn, and I will be happy to answer to your requests. All right, perfect. Appreciate the time. And listeners, if you'd like to learn more, check out talentware.ai. And Jaco, thanks for coming on the show.

19:03Thank you, Ben. All right. Thanks.