A Lot Can Happen Over Coffee The genesis of AI-powered digital skills assessment platform iMocha was at a coffee shop

Sipping a cup of hot mocha, Amit Mishra could see the perils of hiring and its related uncertainties, unfolding. "iMocha came about in a coffee shop when we were discussing the perils of hiring and related uncertainties. We understood the industry was ripe for innovation, so we began there. iMocha was previously Interview Mocha, as it provided software that automated interviews. But over time, the team realized the bigger problem of closing the skills gap, which needed to be solved," said Amit Mishra, founder and CEO of iMocha.

Founded in 2015, iMocha enables talent acquisition and management teams to thoroughly assess individual skills proficiency with job role-based assessments for both recruitment and learning. Leveraging powerful AI simulators, interviewing tools and talent analytics, iMocha is a comprehensive skills assessment platform serving fast growing global organizations. Along with technical skills, iMocha's platform gives an option to add cognitive ability and English proficiency assessments to identify job-readiness of candidates. The assessor can activate real-time image, video and audio capture. It also provides an IP and screen-lock functionality in case a candidate uses any malpractices during the assessment process.

The company faced challenges of identifying the right customer segment, product-market fit and serving as a global enterprise while being in India. "Now, we have worked through it."

In 2022, iMocha is keen on expanding its skills library section and widening its partnerships within the HR tech ecosystem. The company has raised two rounds of funding so far. The pre-Series A round was completed in August 2020 where it raised $600,000 and in January 2022 the platform raised $14 million in Series A round.

Giving an insight into its distribution, he said, "We have various strategic partnerships. We are Microsoft Gold Partner where our team closely works with Microsoft's technology team, solutioning team and account managers. We are in the process of integration with Teams and Veeva Learning. We are Microsoft Co-sell ready partners where we added six large enterprises together - Microsoft team and iMocha team. Besides, we have partnerships with various leading ATS and LMS players."

Innovation and work happy are the two driving beliefs of the company. "The first one is innovation. Over the years, the organization has spent great efforts in understanding the issues and problem statements of enterprises and created solutions to address them. The result of that has been three patents that are recognised worldwide. Lately, iMocha also won the Brandon Hall Award of Excellence, the previous recipients of which were IBM, PepsiCo, and SAP. The second driving force is work happy. We understand that "work happy' means different things for different people and have been actively accommodating that."

Giving his two cents for those looking to start their journey in this sector, he said, "People should start with finding out a problem that has a big market and come up with a differentiated category or a solution within. Another thing to ensure before venturing out is to ensure your opportunity/market should have an expansion potential."

"We would like to begin by creating a small team in the US. We also wish to have deeper partnerships within the USA - Microsoft and advisories. And most importantly, creating more value/products for the same customers," he said about the company's expansion plan.