Important note for investors in Athyna’s last round: At first glance, it may seem that Athyna is currently conducting a down round since the company previously raised on Wefunder at a $20 million valuation and is now raising on Republic at a $16 million valuation. However, the company did NOT conduct any rolling closes at its previous $20 million valuation. Any investors in the Wefunder round were actually given a valuation cap of $14 million. The early bird valuation in its current Republic round was $14 million, but that has now gone up to $16 million. While nothing “went wrong” per se, the company lowered its valuation simply due to the market tanking and overall valuations dropping across the startup ecosystem.
The COVID-19 pandemic completely changed the landscape of remote work across the world. Suddenly, companies had to adjust to a work-from-home environment. Many of them struggled. However, three years later, most companies have embraced this remote environment — and demand for remote workers has skyrocketed.
Many companies are realizing there is a wealth of talent in other countries that can provide high-quality work at affordable prices. Athyna, a curated talent marketplace focused on placing remote workers from developing countries, is capitalizing on this opportunity.
Back in August 2022, we wrote a Neutral analyst report on Athyna. The company is raising again on Republic, so we spoke with CEO Bill Kerr to get updates on how the company has been doing.
Making Headway
When we first spoke with Athyna back in August 2022, the company had 70,000 people in its talent network and had placed 88 employees across its 62 clients. The company had about $4 million in annual recurring revenue during its previous raise.
The table below shows where the company currently stands on all of these metrics.
In just eight months, Athyna has increased its talent pool by 43% and live placements by 39%. Additionally, the company has added $200,000 in annual recurring revenue. Athyna has done this despite gaining just five clients during that time period. While there is quite an imbalance between talent and placements at the moment, the company is continuing to aggressively conduct outbound marketing to gain new clients. And as we can clearly see from Athyna’s metrics, any additional client has the potential to add five to six figures to the company’s top line revenue.
Beyond these metrics, Athyna is making headway on a number of other fronts. The company currently has a closed-curated platform for clients to find and hire talent. The company is developing a third stage of the platform that will utilize machine learning to match talent with employers instantaneously and complete the hiring process in 24 hours. This next stage of development should be completed within the next 12 months. Afterward, the company will move to the fourth stage of the platform, which will feature an open-to-the-public model that will complement the closed platform that the company has already developed. This open model will function more like Fiverr, where anyone can create an account and hire talent for both full-time and part-time/freelance work.
Standing Apart From the Competition
Turing and Andela are Athyna’s most obvious competitors. However, both of these platforms focus exclusively on the hiring of remote engineers from different countries. Athyna hires across all job roles, including sales, marketing, and business development. Therefore, I do still believe that Athyna has a strong, differentiated product with high potential upside. The company has strong financials (profitable) and is in a great position to continue growing the platform and its annual recurring revenue.
