Kibbi: Redefining the Job Search Experience for Newcomers
We first met Kibbi Founder HP Nguyen at HerStory 2022, and we’re thrilled to share their story as one of our Fund II portfolio companies.
With the simple belief that as long as someone is willing to work hard, they should be able to find a job, Hong Phuc (HP) Nguyen founded Kibbi to make it easier for businesses to connect to local job seekers, especially newcomers.
The current resources available to immigrants for finding suitable employment are lacking and make it take longer to feel a sense of belonging. Language barriers, a lack of familiarity with local employers, and a limited network put immigrants at a disadvantage when finding jobs that are easy to get to and match their qualifications. This newcomer experience is only getting worse: in 2021, only 45.7% of permanent residents who’d been in Canada for less than ten years became citizens—that's down from 75.1% in 2001.
Enter Kibbi: a local job community on a mission to solve these age-old problems of friction and resistance for newcomers and young people.
A world where anyone can start contributing quickly and belong to the new community of their choice.
Kibbi is a platform that uses advanced algorithms to match job seekers with job opportunities based on location and other preferences. When nearby jobs become available, candidates living in the area are notified and can easily see the details and location of the role on a map.
For job seekers, Kibbi’s app and technology make the job search process significantly easier for newcomers with its multilingual platform, translating job details into over 60 languages. Jobs are categorized by English fluency, and the multilingual chat feature help for understanding what the job entails. Because Kibbi is location focused, finding a new job or picking up an extra shift near home, daycare, or school is inclusive and accessible.
For employers posting jobs, they can view all nearby active job seekers or search them by skill and invite them to apply for their job, all in one place. By tapping into the location-based talent pool, employers see improved retention while expanding their reach beyond job boards. With 80% of businesses facing labour shortages and immigration predicted to increase, Kibbi’s solution supports the 1.45M immigrants that will be welcomed into Canada in 2023-2025.
Following the MVP launch in June 2022, Kibbi is getting around 2,000 new downloads a month, and it has partnered with more than 50 prominent newcomer non-profit organizations and many ethnic communities all across Canada, such as Small Business BC, Calgary Hotel Association, and Canadian Career Development Foundation.
Some partnership successes for HP and her team include working with ICBA to help their contractors and construction businesses solve labour shortages by tapping into the underserved refugees and communities in B.C., which is in collaboration with MOSAIC, one of B.C.'s three biggest settlement service centers. Manpower Alberta and Mindfield will also be using Kibbi to help their listings reach this new Canadian labour pool.
Lowering barriers to work for career starters by making the job market more inclusive and accessible.
Deeply motivated to understand and solve the challenges newcomers face when entering a new market, HP is leveraging her years of international experience to drive this community project turned successful technology. Before immigrating to Canada, HP ran brand and marketing experience across several Fortune 500 companies in Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.
The51 first had the opportunity to meet Kibbi through our HerStory pitch competition in 2022, and we have been tracking and inspired by the progress that HP and her team have made since. At that point, Kibbi received investment from The51 alongside seasoned early-stage investors, including Saunders Lee and Viewpoint Partner.
HP is looking forward to using the money from her raise to grow her current team of 9, adding bench strength to her executive team and developing the operational team across sales, marketing, and product development. With help on her side to pursue these plans, HP has been leaning on Platform’s Incubator program as part of the first Incubator cohort, as well as being supported by Dave, a Business Development executive with 15+ years in HR-Tech, and Han, a former refugee with 20 years of working with NPOs.
Making it easy for businesses to connect with local job seekers.
Learn more about Kibbi at https://www.mykibbi.com.